[TUHS] Other POSIX Candidates?

[arnold at skeeve.com]

For a long time DEC had "VMS POSIX" product.  I don't know much
more about it, other than that it existed and was what you
describe, more or less.

Marc Rochkind <mrochkind at gmail.com> wrote:

> As I remember, part of the rationale was that DEC wanted something that
> could be specified in an RFP that was defined in terms of an interface,
> rather than an implementation. In theory this would allow them to propose
> VMS with an appropriate interface layer. I don't know if anything like this
> was ever created. But the interface standard sure was, of course.
>
> On Tue, Aug 6, 2024 at 11:32 AM Rik Farrow <rik at rikfarrow.com> wrote:
>
> > I recall something different than what others had suggested. When the US
> > government issued requests for proposals, they weren't permitted to specify
> > products by name. In particular, if you wanted something that wasn't
> > Microsoft, you couldn't actually specify that it be Unix.
> >
> > So POSIX was born partially as a way of letting it be known you wanted a
> > Unix variant rather than something else.
> >
> > Certainly porting was an issue. I did work for a software shop in the late
> > 80s and early 90s that produced graphics software, and porting between Unix
> > systems was relatively easy, compared to, say, moving the software to
> > Apollo's DomainIX, a sort of Unix-like version of Apollo Domain. With Unix
> > systems and this software, the biggest issue was fonts, as the software
> > needed to be able to calculate the extent, that is, the bounding box, for
> > text that was to be displayed.
> >
> > Strangely enough, the other big issue was time.
> >
> > Rik
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 6, 2024 at 6:29 AM Peter Weinberger (温博格) via TUHS <
> > tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
> >
> >> and the folks from PARC wanted a more RPC-based open OS, according to
> >> my not-yet-fully-retrieved memories.
> >>
> >> On Tue, Aug 6, 2024 at 2:40 AM <arnold at skeeve.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > segaloco via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > > Another way to put it would be as a chicken and egg, which came
> >> first, ...
> >> > > ..., or the ongoing need for UNIX standardization finding sponsorship
> >> > > by the working groups, IEEE, etc.?
> >> >
> >> > This.
> >> >
> >> > Try to understand what things were like at the time. There were
> >> > a ton of competing Unix systems, all different:
> >> >
> >> > - IBM: AIX on the mainframe and PS/2, which were different from
> >> >   AIX on the RT/PC and later RS/6000 (workstations).
> >> >
> >> > - DEC: Ultrix on minicomputers and microvaxen, and later on MIPS
> >> >   based workstations
> >> >
> >> > - Data General: DG/UX on their minicomputers.
> >> >
> >> > - Pyramid: A BSD/System V hybrid RISC minicomputer
> >> >
> >> > - Sun: Workstations, 680x0 based and later SPARC based, and servers.
> >> >   Initially BSD based, later SVR4 based.
> >> >
> >> > - Workstations from HP, Tektronix, NBI, others I've probably forgotten,
> >> >   3B2 and 3B1/Unix PC from AT&T... The list goes on and on and on.
> >> >
> >> > Things split roughly along BSD/System V lines, but code wasn't portable.
> >> > Did you use bcopy() or memcpy()? index() or strchr()? There was lots
> >> > of mixing and matching happening, too.
> >> >
> >> > There was a crying need for a standard. The mess is what begot GNU
> >> > Autoconf, which made a difference at the time. Having the ANSI C
> >> standard
> >> > also helped.
> >> >
> >> > HTH,
> >> >
> >> > Arnold
> >>
> >
>
> -- 
> *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com <mrochkind at gmail.com>*