[rescue] Re: UNIX PC/3b1?

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Thursday, June 7, 2001 at 08:10:31 (-0400), Ken Hansen wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [rescue] Re: UNIX PC/3b1?
>
> AT&T used to sell a terminal/phone that looked like a shrinken 3B1/7300 that
> was designed (or at least commonly used for) managing merlin phone systems.
> The keyboard slid into the base.

Are you sure you're not thinking of the Personal Terminal 510A or 510D?
They had a phone handset on the side and a DTMF keypad on the top.  They
were just an ANSI 3.64 terminals with RS-232 and 9600bps modem -- not a
programmable computer.  It was actually designed to be an integrated
voice & data terminal that a typical manager or executive wouldn't mind
having on his desk (because the keyboard could be hidden away and
wouldn't make him nervous and becuase he certainly didn't want a PC,
UNIX or otherwise, on his desk!).

The 3b1 was the larger model UNIX-PC and the 7300 was the smaller model.
Both had 10 MHz mc68010 CPUs.  If I remember correctly the only external
physical difference between a 7300 and a 3b1 was the 3b1 had a squarish
box under the monitor but the 7300 had just the slopped top.

The UNIX-PC was actually used in some AT&T device, though I don't
remember exactly which (their mid-sized phone systems had 3b2/300's or
3b2/400's in/with them at the time, and the larger ones, eg. System 85,
on larger 3b2's, 3b5's, and 3b15's; the System 75 had an optional
built-in 3b5 for CDR/CMS).  Maybe they eventually ported 3B-CMS to the
3b1....

AT&T bought back hundreds, if not thousands, of 7300's and 3b1's in the
late 1980's or early 1990's too (many from their outlying offices)
because they ran out of them and were still selling some device that was
controlled by them.

Merlin call accounting and call management ran on PC-6300's (re-badged
Olivetti i8086 PCs).  Merlin-CMS was differnt software from, but
somewhat compatible with, 3B-CMS.

Typically AT&T Canada never installed a terminal to manage a Merlin
system -- you had to call them in to make changes, though IIRC there was
an RS232 port for porgramming so it's entirely possible that some
installations used 510 terminals for programming.

(I not only used many AT&T machines besides my own 3b2's, but I happen
to have the full set of AT&T catalogs from Jan. 1987 sitting handy on my
bookself here :-)

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

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