Re: [TUHS] Research UNIX on the AT&T 3B2?

[Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com>]

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below...

On Mon, Aug 27, 2018 at 12:04 PM Mary Ann Horton <mah@mhorton.net> wrote:

> Inside AT&T (but outside research) there was considerable pressure to use
> AT&T products (3B, System V, BLIT/5620, Datakit) rather than the externally
> developing Sun/Ethernet/TCP suite, especially in the mid-late 1980s.  We
> all (mostly) hated them and wanted Suns, but we were told "eat your own dog
> food."
>
That was always my impression.     IIRC Mt. Xinu made a poster (and Kolstad
made a series of buttons) stating "4.2 > V"  I remember somebody (ber
probably) had it hanging in Whippany and certain supervisors were not
amsussed.

The 3B20 and 3B5 were awful, but the 3B2 had potential.
>
It was not so much they we awful IMO, is that they were nothing special -
too little too late.   The 3B20 (the only computer I even knew with a 'pull
starter'), was basically a 1MIP 780 and took the same resources (machine
room, multiple 19" cabinets, etc); when a 68020 based Masscomp, Apollo or
Sun was at 4-5 MIPS and fit under your desk.   As I said, fighting the last
war.

The 3B2 got the size and performance more inline, but the SW was still
behind and by them it was arguable if a BLIT over a serial line could
compete with the builtin graphics.   For the former, did the 3B2 only run
SRV3 and SRV4?   The others ran SVR0-2 which was not even close to BSD.  By
SVR3 the OS finally got better.    BILT had some great stuff, but I think
the shear volume of programmers using X-Windows, particularly once it ran
on super cheap HW (*i.e.* Wintel based) it was tough.



> Once we got a working TCP/IP network in Bell Labs the tide turned in favor
> of Suns
>
Although by the time of its release, the default system for

SRV4 was Wintel.

Clem

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