18 Feb
2020
18 Feb
'20
1:28 p.m.
I was more interested in the "Mach" kernel itself as I've only recently
been able to get it to boot up from sources for the i386.
I hadn't looked into the other aos/vrm stuff. But that is interesting, a 4.3 with
the vfs.
In hind sight maybe Mach wasn't so bad with its messaging and threads, along with
multiprocessor support.. Its what we all were eventually desiring anyway.
One thing is for sure, multiple GHz machines sure make it a lot easier to use, these
days.
I'd gotten lucky with Mach as the platform code is really modular and even a monkey
like me banging on a keyboard of an existing Mach 386 machine was able to get the latter
source running under the older platform code. Shame Mach 3 seems to have broken all the
fun stuff or requires real effort and understanding... Things I lack.
But I was really surprised about the coprocessor cards.. I wonder what other interesting
things are in there. Or how hard it is to hammer 386 BSD into aos "sort of a 4.3
Tahoe ++"
From: Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling(a)kev009.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2020, 9:02 p.m.
To: Jason Stevens
Cc: Charles H Sauer; TUHS
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions
Thanks for clarifying. I will reassert that the three pieces of systems software I
mentioned (VRM, AIX2, AOS) are not Mach in any way I know about. AOS may have some
generic cross pollination, it’d be whatever was going on at CSRG also for non-RT
(4.2-4.3?) BSD platforms at the time of checkout. Kirk or Warner may be able to elucidate
if provided the date and some reference material from AOS or I can do some original
research.
Most distinctly and important: VRM is not in any way Mach, it was its own bespoke
microkernel. The microkernel would have been the most “Mach” part of Mach research, so
this makes the VRM concept even more unique and enjoyable to me being so different and
ambitious. Therefore I don’t think it is particularly correct to say any of VRM, AIX, AOS
software is Mach without its ukernel.
What you linked is a very late port (late 1990s) of a hybrid of 4.3 and 4.4 BSD (late
meaning in the time when Net, Free, and Open had long taken over from CSRG BSD). I will
quote a Twitter communication I had with Miod Vallat in the past:“Also it's not
really 4.4. It's a mix of 4.3BSD-Reno plus the 4.4 VFS layer and new system calls. It
still uses the 4.3, pre-Mach, VM system, hence no mmap(2).”
What Miod means by “pre-Mach” above: 4.4 BSD adopted the kernel memory subsystem of Mach
into the existing BSD monolithic kernel. Not any of the ukernel or things like Mach IPC.
Not trying to be overly pedantic with you just trying to keep the records straight since
these machines are one of my keen interests and I welcome new information on them.
Regards,Kevin
On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 5:30 AM Jason Stevens <jsteve(a)superglobalmegacorp.com>
wrote:
Oh sure!
I'm having to use my phone...
It's the combined sources
here:http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/IBM/RT/rt_bsd44/
doc mk
jsteve@localhost:~/rt_bsd4/src/sys/.local/mach2.4$ pwd
/home/jsteve/rt_bsd4/src/sys/.local/mach2.4
jsteve@localhost:~/rt_bsd4/src/sys/.local/mach2.4/mk/conf$ cat vers*6951X
So 5.1x edit 69
jsteve@localhost:~/rt_bsd4/src/sys/.local/mach2.4/mk$ more CHANGELOGHISTORY 17-May-88
David Golub (dbg) at Carnegie-Mellon University XM21: David Black completely
rewrote the accurate timing code (which is now implemented on all machines) and the
priority and scheduling algorithms. The system now correctly reports
cpu_usage per thread.
The all file has this before i386 was added.
So it's an older v2 than what is on the CSRG CD, but not as old as the VAX '86
stuff.
It seems to be March 11 1989, although that could be when this was either archived or
ported.. I guess they didn't exactly sync to a public kernel tree all that often.
On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 4:05 PM +0800, "Kevin Bowling"
<kevin.bowling(a)kev009.com> wrote:
I’m asking exactly where the Mach is in the linked archive. VRM, AIX or AOS? Can you
support this with a reference for my own documentation
On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 1:02 AM Jason Stevens <jsteve(a)superglobalmegacorp.com>
wrote:
It's the CMU micro kernel. The hybrid "2.6" lived on in NeXTSTEP, and
OPENSTEP, with various upgrades to bring it up to OS X.
The RT as I understand it was a research machine, hence the BSD ports, and Mach port.
What is interesting the more I dig around is that there was ROMP coprocoessor cards, and
an OS/2 and DOS monitor program to let you boot BSD on the card. Peripheral IO was done
on the x86 side.
If RT's are rare, I can't imagine how impossible it would be to get one of those
cards!
The BSD assembler and linker source is in the archives too, no doubt it'll help
someone make a RT emulator.
Get Outlook for Android
On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 12:54 PM +0800, "Kevin Bowling"
<kevin.bowling(a)kev009.com> wrote:
Can you clarify what is Mach in this archive if I have a gap in my knowledge? I didn’t
know the VRM had any direct relationship to Mach
Regards,Kevin
On Mon, Feb 17, 2020 at 9:43 PM Jason Stevens <jsteve(a)superglobalmegacorp.com>
wrote:
Interesting stuff! And another version of Mach is buried in there.
So the 4 csrg cd set may have updates to the romp support as it's an older version of
the 5.1 kernel from 89... Not that think there is any Mach romp users.
Get Outlook for Android
From: TUHS <tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org> on behalf of Charles H Sauer
<sauer(a)technologists.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2020, 5:51 a.m.
To: TUHS
Subject: [TUHS] Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions
The Bitsavers' RSS feed
(http://user.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/bitsavers-bits.xml) seemed
to me to be dominated by RT, AIX, AOS (BSD for RT), etc. stuff in the
last week or so. I've only sampled a few items, but discovered a few
things that I should have known (or knew and forgot?) while I was at IBM.
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/pc/rt/
--
voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com
fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/
Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter: CharlesHSauer
18 Feb
18 Feb
1:39 p.m.
New subject: Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions
On 2/18/20 5:28 AM, Jason Stevens wrote:
But I was really surprised about the coprocessor
cards.. I wonder what other interesting things are in there. Or how hard it is to
hammer
386 BSD into aos "sort of a 4.3 Tahoe ++"
I haven't dug into finding this yet, but wasn't there an RT netBSD?
I've been interested in Mach since messing with MacMach on a IIfx in the early
90's
Has there been any collective effort trying to recover RIG/Mach code?
It all seems very fragmented.
20 Feb
20 Feb
1:44 a.m.
New subject: Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions
On 19 Feb 2020, at 00:39, Al Kossow
<aek(a)bitsavers.org> wrote:
<…>
I've been interested in Mach since messing with
MacMach on a IIfx in the early 90's
Has there been any collective effort trying to recover RIG/Mach code?
It all seems very fragmented.
I went looking for some of this a few months ago, but it seemed like it wasn’t going to be
a simple search. At one time I’d played with CMU Mach, Utah Mach, OSF Mach, and Apple’s
MkLinux, but it all seemed to have drifted into broken links and missing FTP servers.
Sprite, Accent, Spring, Amoeba, VSTa … a lot of the OS projects I remember from that era
seem to have disappeared. Only Plan9 seems to have really survived (not counting the Mach
bits of Darwin).
d
2:03 a.m.
New subject: Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions
On 2/19/20 5:44 PM, David Arnold wrote:
Sprite, Accent, Spring, Amoeba, VSTa … a lot of the OS
projects I remember from that era seem to have disappeared.
There was a Sprite CD that I should have somewhere.
I don't know if I ever pulled down all of Amoeba
I keep hoping someone has Accent (or any of the CMU tape archive)
I did put up my copy of the Stanford V Kernel on bitsavers a while back.
2:09 a.m.
New subject: Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions
https://web.archive.org/web/20000901081815/http://www.cs.vu.nl/pub/amoeba/a…
<https://web.archive.org/web/20000901081815/http://www.cs.vu.nl/pub/amoeba/amoeba5.3/>
On Feb 19, 2020, at 6:03 PM, Al Kossow
<aek(a)bitsavers.org> wrote:
On 2/19/20 5:44 PM, David Arnold wrote:
Sprite, Accent, Spring, Amoeba, VSTa … a lot of
the OS projects I remember from that era seem to have disappeared.
There was a Sprite CD that I should have somewhere.
I don't know if I ever pulled down all of Amoeba
I keep hoping someone has Accent (or any of the CMU tape archive)
I did put up my copy of the Stanford V Kernel on bitsavers a while back.
7:18 a.m.
New subject: Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions
David Arnold <davida(a)pobox.com> wrote:
Sprite, Accent, Spring, Amoeba, VSTa … a lot of the OS
projects I
remember from that era seem to have disappeared. Only Plan9 seems to
have really survived (not counting the Mach bits of Darwin).
At some point there was a Sprite CD being sold, which I think I
have somewhere....
Accent only ran on the PERQ; I once described Mach as "Accent on the
VAX". :-) So, unless you have PERQ hardware or an emulator, it wouldn't
do you much good even if you had the source.
Arnold
18 Feb
18 Feb
1:41 p.m.
New subject: Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions
Well, it’s not particularly hard to find a Mach system today. The fruit
company makes computers and mobile phones with it. Steve Jobs enamor for
Avie Tevanian is well chronicled in the common biographies.
The problem with Mach is their ukernel implementation was pretty shit while
the ideas were sound. MacOS runs like an old dog to this day on anything
remotely system% intensive (like say a network server).
IBM abandoned the idea of any ukernel with AIX3 for RISC/6000.. Charlie may
be able to add commentary on that but it was almost certainly for
performance which was paramount in the workstation wars and RS6K had an
front runner opening.
The idea of small TCBs and IPC has really been perfected in L4 kernels;
seL4 in particular is one of the most interesting pieces of systems
software today. Fruit company uses a different older L4 for their security
coprocessors and had a Darwin port for L4 at one point called Darbat.
Regards,
Kevin
On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 6:29 AM Jason Stevens <
jsteve(a)superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote:
I was more interested in the "Mach" kernel
itself as I've only recently
been able to get it to boot up from sources for the i386.
I hadn't looked into the other aos/vrm stuff. But that is interesting, a
4.3 with the vfs.
In hind sight maybe Mach wasn't so bad with its messaging and threads,
along with multiprocessor support.. Its what we all were eventually
desiring anyway.
One thing is for sure, multiple GHz machines sure make it a lot easier to
use, these days.
I'd gotten lucky with Mach as the platform code is really modular and even
a monkey like me banging on a keyboard of an existing Mach 386 machine was
able to get the latter source running under the older platform code. Shame
Mach 3 seems to have broken all the fun stuff or requires real effort and
understanding... Things I lack.
But I was really surprised about the coprocessor cards.. I wonder what
other interesting things are in there. Or how hard it is to hammer 386 BSD
into aos "sort of a 4.3 Tahoe ++"
------------------------------
*From:* Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling(a)kev009.com>
*Sent:* Tuesday, February 18, 2020, 9:02 p.m.
*To:* Jason Stevens
*Cc:* Charles H Sauer; TUHS
*Subject:* Re: [TUHS] Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions
Thanks for clarifying. I will reassert that the three pieces of systems
software I mentioned (VRM, AIX2, AOS) are not Mach in any way I know
about. AOS may have some generic cross pollination, it’d be whatever was
going on at CSRG also for non-RT (4.2-4.3?) BSD platforms at the time of
checkout. Kirk or Warner may be able to elucidate if provided the date and
some reference material from AOS or I can do some original research.
Most distinctly and important: VRM is not in any way Mach, it was its own
bespoke microkernel. The microkernel would have been the most “Mach” part
of Mach research, so this makes the VRM concept even more unique and
enjoyable to me being so different and ambitious. Therefore I don’t think
it is particularly correct to say any of VRM, AIX, AOS software is Mach
without its ukernel.
What you linked is a very late port (late 1990s) of a hybrid of 4.3 and
4.4 BSD (late meaning in the time when Net, Free, and Open had long taken
over from CSRG BSD). I will quote a Twitter communication I had with Miod
Vallat in the past:
“Also it's not really 4.4. It's a mix of 4.3BSD-Reno plus the 4.4 VFS
layer and new system calls. It still uses the 4.3, pre-Mach, VM system,
hence no mmap(2).”
What Miod means by “pre-Mach” above: 4.4 BSD adopted the kernel memory
subsystem of Mach into the existing BSD monolithic kernel. Not any of the
ukernel or things like Mach IPC.
Not trying to be overly pedantic with you just trying to keep the records
straight since these machines are one of my keen interests and I welcome
new information on them.
Regards,
Kevin
On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 5:30 AM Jason Stevens <
jsteve(a)superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote:
Oh sure!
I'm having to use my phone...
It's the combined sources here:
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/IBM/RT/rt_bsd44/
doc mk
jsteve@localhost:~/rt_bsd4/src/sys/.local/mach2.4$ pwd
/home/jsteve/rt_bsd4/src/sys/.local/mach2.4
jsteve@localhost:~/rt_bsd4/src/sys/.local/mach2.4/mk/conf$ cat vers*
69
5
1
X
So 5.1x edit 69
jsteve@localhost:~/rt_bsd4/src/sys/.local/mach2.4/mk$ more CHANGELOG
HISTORY
17-May-88 David Golub (dbg) at Carnegie-Mellon University
XM21:
David Black completely rewrote the accurate timing code
(which is now implemented on all machines) and the priority
and scheduling algorithms. The system now correctly reports
cpu_usage per thread.
The all file has this before i386 was added.
So it's an older v2 than what is on the CSRG CD, but not as old as the
VAX '86 stuff.
It seems to be March 11 1989, although that could be when this was either
archived or ported.. I guess they didn't exactly sync to a public kernel
tree all that often.
On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 4:05 PM +0800, "Kevin Bowling" <
kevin.bowling(a)kev009.com> wrote:
I’m asking exactly where the Mach is in the linked archive. VRM, AIX or
> AOS? Can you support this with a reference for my own documentation
>
> On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 1:02 AM Jason Stevens <
> jsteve(a)superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote:
>
>> It's the CMU micro kernel. The hybrid "2.6" lived on in NeXTSTEP,
and
>> OPENSTEP, with various upgrades to bring it up to OS X.
>>
>> The RT as I understand it was a research machine, hence the BSD ports,
>> and Mach port.
>>
>> What is interesting the more I dig around is that there was ROMP
>> coprocoessor cards, and an OS/2 and DOS monitor program to let you boot BSD
>> on the card. Peripheral IO was done on the x86 side.
>>
>> If RT's are rare, I can't imagine how impossible it would be to get
one
>> of those cards!
>>
>> The BSD assembler and linker source is in the archives too, no doubt
>> it'll help someone make a RT emulator.
>>
>> Get Outlook for Android <https://aka.ms/ghei36>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 12:54 PM +0800, "Kevin Bowling" <
>> kevin.bowling(a)kev009.com> wrote:
>>
>> Can you clarify what is Mach in this archive if I have a gap in my
>>> knowledge? I didn’t know the VRM had any direct relationship to Mach
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Kevin
>>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 17, 2020 at 9:43 PM Jason Stevens <
>>> jsteve(a)superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Interesting stuff! And another version of Mach is buried in there.
>>>>
>>>> So the 4 csrg cd set may have updates to the romp support as it's
an
>>>> older version of the 5.1 kernel from 89... Not that think there is any
>>>> Mach romp users.
>>>>
>>>> Get Outlook for Android <https://aka.ms/ghei36>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>> *From:* TUHS <tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org> on behalf of Charles H
>>>> Sauer <sauer(a)technologists.com>
>>>> *Sent:* Tuesday, February 18, 2020, 5:51 a.m.
>>>> *To:* TUHS
>>>> *Subject:* [TUHS] Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions
>>>>
>>>> The Bitsavers' RSS feed (
>>>> http://user.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/bitsavers-bits.xml)
>>>> seemed to me to be dominated by RT, AIX, AOS (BSD for RT), etc. stuff in
>>>> the last week or so. I've only sampled a few items, but discovered a
few
>>>> things that I should have known (or knew and forgot?) while I was at
IBM.
>>>> http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/pc/rt/ -- voice: +1.512.784.7526
>>>> e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web:
https://technologists.com/sauer/
>>>> Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter
>>>> <https://technologists.com/sauer/Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter>:
>>>> CharlesHSauer
>>>>
>>>
20 Feb
20 Feb
6:44 a.m.
New subject: anedotes: RT/PC VRM, (early) AIX compilers, IBM (Research) software release/pricing [was Re: Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions
On Feb 18, 2020, at 7:41 AM, Kevin Bowling
<kevin.bowling(a)kev009.com> wrote:
...
IBM abandoned the idea of any ukernel with AIX3 for RISC/6000.. Charlie may be able to
add commentary on that but it was almost certainly for performance which was paramount in
the workstation wars and RS6K had an front runner opening.
I initially missed Kevin's ping after my spam filter put several TUHS messages in
/var/mail/devnull. (I eventually skim subject lines of messages that go there.)
I could write more than I want to/should about how the VRM came to be and not to be, but
will try to add a little to what I've said before
(https://notes.technologists.com/notes/2017/03/08/lets-start-at-the-very-beg…).
I'm trusting 30+ year-old memories here and not looking at the various papers and
manuals that might inform.
I joined Glenn's AFWS project July 5, 1982. There was no well defined software plan
yet. Glenn wanted to do something useful and significant, and proposed that we do the VRM.
We had several distinct user environments in mind. I took the lead in writing a
specification of the VMI (virtual machine interface) while others started prototyping. We
were way overly ambitious with abstractions along the lines of the single level store of
(Glenn's) System 38, trying to take advantage of the 40 bit addressing of the Rosetta
virtual memory chip, yet still heavily influenced by CP/CMS. After a few months, Al Chang,
primary person behind CP.R, came to Austin for a design review of what we'd done. He
told Glenn he'd grade our work "C+". That might have been generous.
We scaled back our ambitions dramatically, started working with ISC. About the time (1983)
of the transition from "ad tech" to "product" organization, it became
clear that our virtual memory manager needed to be scrapped and we lifted what Al had done
for CP.R and put it in the VRM.
In hindsight, the VRM turned out better than it might have. Besides AIX there was a
version of Pick for VRM that sold about 4000 copies according to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RT_PC. Though the VMI cost us some in performance, we
were surprisingly successful in minimizing the penalties. But with AIX 3 and RS/6000 we
wanted to take dramatic steps forward, and it made no sense to preserve the VMI.
Anecdotal comments on other TUHS/COFF discussions:
If I recall correctly, pcc, eventually including the HCR optimizing phase, was bundled
with base AIX. Initially, the C compiler based on the PL.8 compiler would only run on CMS,
so it was not generally available outside of IBM, but app vendors, especially CAD vendors,
were enabled and encouraged to come to Austin to use it to get the best performance. The
native C compiler based on PL.8 compiler concepts ended up being a complete rewrite,
outside of Yorktown, and sold as a separate product.
Producing software products, getting them released, priced, etc. was very confusing to me
most of the time I was at IBM. Part of it was the history that Clem has cited. Part of it
was confusion about the antitrust suits against IBM. Part of it was confusion about
whether and what software was patentable. Academics and others wanted access to the
modeling & simulation software, RESQ, my team developed at Yorktown. Eventually, the
concept of "Research Distributed Program" was agreed upon and RESQ was the first
instance: https://technologists.com/sauer/RA144.pdf. However, we were forced to price RESQ
much higher than I thought reasonable. I had already transferred to Austin by the time the
release was official -- I don't know how many copies were sold. But source code was
necessary to take full advantage of RESQ so the PL/I source was included on the tapes.
When OSF was announced, with the intention of making AIX source available to the other OSF
companies, I was stunned because it was so uncharacteristic of the IBM I thought I knew.
It would be interesting to know how that would have worked out if OSF had stuck with AIX
and IBM had delivered the source on the schedule everyone hoped for, but that's on a
different timeline than this one.
--
voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com
fax: +1.512.346.5240 web: https://technologists.com/sauer/
Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter: CharlesHSauer
8:27 a.m.
New subject: anedotes: RT/PC VRM, (early) AIX compilers, IBM (Research) software release/pricing [was Re: Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions
Thanks for sharing, very interesting history to me. You guys were pros..
particularly amazing to me how far ahead the machine abstractions were on
the various IBM machines (CP, S/38, VRM) compared to most of the industry.
On Wed, Feb 19, 2020 at 11:44 PM Charles H. Sauer <sauer(a)technologists.com>
wrote:
I initially missed Kevin's ping after my spam filter put several TUHS
messages in /var/mail/devnull. (I eventually skim subject lines of messages
that go there.)
I could write more than I want to/should about how the VRM came to be and
not to be, but will try to add a little to what I've said before (
https://notes.technologists.com/notes/2017/03/08/lets-start-at-the-very-beg…).
I'm trusting 30+ year-old memories here and not looking at the various
papers and manuals that might inform.
I joined Glenn's AFWS project July 5, 1982. There was no well defined
software plan yet. Glenn wanted to do something useful and significant, and
proposed that we do the VRM. We had several distinct user environments in
mind. I took the lead in writing a specification of the VMI (virtual
machine interface) while others started prototyping. We were way overly
ambitious with abstractions along the lines of the single level store of
(Glenn's) System 38, trying to take advantage of the 40 bit addressing of
the Rosetta virtual memory chip, yet still heavily influenced by CP/CMS.
After a few months, Al Chang, primary person behind CP.R, came to Austin
for a design review of what we'd done. He told Glenn he'd grade our work
"C+". That might have been generous.
We scaled back our ambitions dramatically, started working with ISC. About
the time (1983) of the transition from "ad tech" to "product"
organization,
it became clear that our virtual memory manager needed to be scrapped and
we lifted what Al had done for CP.R and put it in the VRM.
In hindsight, the VRM turned out better than it might have. Besides AIX
there was a version of Pick for VRM that sold about 4000 copies according
to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RT_PC. Though the VMI cost us some
in performance, we were surprisingly successful in minimizing the
penalties. But with AIX 3 and RS/6000 we wanted to take dramatic steps
forward, and it made no sense to preserve the VMI.
Anecdotal comments on other TUHS/COFF discussions:
If I recall correctly, pcc, eventually including the HCR optimizing phase,
was bundled with base AIX. Initially, the C compiler based on the PL.8
compiler would only run on CMS, so it was not generally available outside
of IBM, but app vendors, especially CAD vendors, were enabled and
encouraged to come to Austin to use it to get the best performance. The
native C compiler based on PL.8 compiler concepts ended up being a complete
rewrite, outside of Yorktown, and sold as a separate product.
Producing software products, getting them released, priced, etc. was very
confusing to me most of the time I was at IBM. Part of it was the history
that Clem has cited. Part of it was confusion about the antitrust suits
against IBM. Part of it was confusion about whether and what software was
patentable. Academics and others wanted access to the modeling & simulation
software, RESQ, my team developed at Yorktown. Eventually, the concept of
"Research Distributed Program" was agreed upon and RESQ was the first
instance: https://technologists.com/sauer/RA144.pdf. However, we were
forced to price RESQ much higher than I thought reasonable. I had already
transferred to Austin by the time the release was official -- I don't know
how many copies were sold. But source code was necessary to take full
advantage of RESQ so the PL/I source was included on the tapes.
When OSF was announced, with the intention of making AIX source available
to the other OSF companies, I was stunned because it was so
uncharacteristic of the IBM I thought I knew. It would be interesting to
know how that would have worked out if OSF had stuck with AIX and IBM had
delivered the source on the schedule everyone hoped for, but that's on a
different timeline than this one.
--
voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com
fax: +1.512.346.5240 web: https://technologists.com/sauer/
Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter
<https://technologists.com/sauer/Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter>:
CharlesHSauer
On Feb 18, 2020, at 7:41 AM, Kevin Bowling
<kevin.bowling(a)kev009.com>
wrote:
...
IBM abandoned the idea of any ukernel with AIX3 for RISC/6000.. Charlie
may be
able to add commentary on that but it was almost certainly for
performance which was paramount in the workstation wars and RS6K had an
front runner opening.
1530
days inactive
1532
days old
8 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
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Al Kossow -
arnold＠skeeve.com -
Bakul Shah -
Charles H. Sauer -
David Arnold -
Jason Stevens -
Kevin Bowling