[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[Stuart, Jon]

Perhaps an OSF1-"lite", on par with 4.4BSD-Lite which had the
copyrighted code removed, would be possible to get released.  Of course,
HP would have to have a motive in doing so.

All of this, the closing of UNX, the loss of the VAX and now the dying
of the Alpha chip, is very disheartening.  Although I'm lucky enough to
have access to 5 VAXen (running 4.3 BSD UNIX and one running Ultrix4),
it's tough for anyone to learn and play with this stuff, because they
are becoming so scarce (you can by a VaxStation/MicroVax on eBay, but
these will only run Ultrix and not 4.3 BSD, unfortunately).

I also am very disappointed about the abandoning of the Alpha chip.
>From it's start I was very impressed with it.  It was a very good RISC
architecture, and the first to really do 64-bit computing, and do it
well.  Before they decided to kill it, it was still the best
architecture for 64-bit computing on the market.  

Even though I'm pro-open-source, I also can't help but lament losing
many of the commercial Unices over the past few years.  The next version
of HP-UX will apparently be the last, PA-RISC is dying along with Alpha,
so presumably OSF1/Digital UNIX/Tru64 is either dead or end-of-lifed as
well, IRIX has moved to x86 (the platform I tend to loathe the most,
probably because I know it best and learned it first),  AIX is still
around but IBM is focussing strongly on Linux, and Solaris is still
around (but they did kill SunOS 4.1.4 -- personally one of my favorite
Unices of all time, basically 4.3 BSD + Sun stuff such as OpenWindows +
nice improvements such as loadable kernel modules + pcc ported to
SPARC).

Not to mention all the mid-to-late 80's versions of UNIX -- Interactive,
AT&T System V (actually branded as that, uname -a returned
UNIX_System_V), as well as a ton of others I'm forgetting.

I guess I'm somewhat nostoglic about old UNIX, and I enjoy seeing it's
evolution.  That's why whenever I'm able to view the source code of some
closed-source UNIX, it's very enjoyable to me.  Old UNIX has a rustic
appeal to me.

It's unfortunate that it seems we must resign ourselves to a future of
x86-based OSs, such as Linux, or even Open/Free/NetBSD, which aren't
really UNIX (Linux definitely isn't, and the modern BSDs have changed
enough that they also aren't IMO).

It seems there's no diversity anymore, both in software and hardware.
It's amazing how x86 (an inferior architecture) could win the war of
architectures when it was basically a bastardized version of the VAX
(the best CISC chip ever, IMO).  There were so many superior
architectures out there, such as SPARC, MIPS, Alpha, PA-RISC, POWER,
PowerPC, and VAX.  For x86 to win, really shows that the quality of
technology in a product really has no bearing on how it will do in the
market.  It's not about quality, it's about profitability, and they are
very often not the same.

While IA-64 is based on the PA-RISC, it's still Intel, and the choice of
operating systems for it is still going to be limited to the handful
previously mentioned.  Apple's move away from a RISC architecture
(PowerPC) to x86 is just as disheartening. 

Oh well.  I guess we are nearing the finish-line of this "race to the
bottom", because of the capitalistic influence on the computer industry.
 
My advice to anyone interested in UNIX (and computer architecture)
history is to stock up on machines now, while you can still find them on
places like eBay.  Some of the newer-but-still-dead architectures such
as SGI/MIPS are numerous on eBay.  Although, be careful when buying on
eBay, because many times you'll get a banged up, stripped of components,
unworking shell of one of the slower models of a system.  This is
particularly true when trying to acquire a SparcStation on eBay.  Good
luck trying to find a 2way SparcStation 20 with a nice size hard drive
and lots of RAM (the fastest machine SunOS 4.1.4 could run on -- and
I've heard that 4.1.4 did have very alpha SMP support, similar to what
Linux and the modern BSDs used for a long time, that being a "big giant
lock" [mutex] around the kernel).

...Jon

-----Original Message-----
From: tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org [mailto:tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org]
On Behalf Of patv at monmouth.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 2:40 PM
To: Lyrical Nanoha; tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

I have heard some grumblings of TOG possibly releasing CDE as open
source, but have no idea of where that stands.  To be perfectly frank,
it had a lot of problems, especially in a 64-bit world.  There were too
many word size assumptions, and a very good friend struggled for many,
many hours fixing those problems before it went to DEIL in India for
support.  It could probably still benefit from a good "many eyes"
developer review and bug fix session in the hands of open source
developers.  However, IMHO, it no longer has any advantage over KDE or
Gnome, but, as I said, that is my opinion.

Personally, I'd love to see OSF1 released open source.  There were
experimental x86 and two Itanium versions in various states of
completion floating around DEC/Compaq/HP.  I was part of the last
Itanium effort before the HP merger.  That one booted to single user
before the project was killed.

OSF1/Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX was already branded as UNIX, and it would
be fun to see what would happen to the landscape if a branded UNIX was
free.
 Unfortunately, too many proprietary licensed pieces of code in the HP
version, especially in System V support, for that to ever happen. Oh
well, we can all dream ...

Pat

 

> On Wed, 17 May 2006, patv at monmouth.com wrote:
> 
> > Another loss to the UNIX community that I can personally report was 
> > the closing, one year ago this month, of the old DEC Manalpan
facility (UNX).
> > This was the home of VAX System V, a large portion of Ultrix, and 
> > everything that made up OSF1/Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX except for 
> > kernel, drivers, and several other components (although I personally

> > did some kernel work on occasion).  We did shell and utilities, 
> > about 1/2 of X, Motif, CDE, installation, mail, and other parts of 
> > the OS that made it useful.  If you look at old uucp headers 
> > anywhere on usenet, any of the traffic with headers that included 
> > systems with "unx" in the name was routed through this facility.  I 
> > was there from when it was Digital through Compaq and finally HP,
almost all the way through to the closing.
> 
> It would be nice if CDE were free, the rest is either part of the 
> Heirloom project or cloned in some open-source system (e.g., Lesstif).

> --;
> 
> -uso.
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> 


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