[TUHS] Un-released/internal/special UNIX versions/ports during the years?

Ronald Natalie ron at ronnatalie.com
Wed Mar 1 17:45:01 AEST 2017


> On Feb 28, 2017, at 10:15 PM, Gregg Levine <gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hello!
> We (well most of us) all of us know about AIX. Well what about AIX/370?
> ——

AIX/370 was a real product.     One of the ones that I don’t ever think saw the light of day was the i860 AIX port.   IBM made two i860 add-in cards for the PS/2.   The single processor version was called the Wizard and there was a 4 processor version with an integral frame buffer called the W4.     We ported AIX to both.    The i860 version actually had more in common with the 370 version than it did with the 386.     All of these AIX versions came from the same source code and used the IBM TCF to allow you to transparently run executables across nodes in the cluster.     The only AIX that didn’t play was the completely independent (and in my opinion somewhat brain damaged) IBM/RT UNIX.    If there was a TCF-based RT kernel, I never saw it, even inside the IBM labs.

Speaking of odd job control mechanisms.   The 386 side had a device that multiplexed the PS/2 console into multiple streams called the “High Function Terminal.”   When we wrote the virtual console for the Wizard/W4 add in card, we called it the “Low Function Terminal."


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