[geeks] nerd reading for a Friday night ... old-skool waxed

[Sandwich Maker]

" From: Bill Bradford <mrbill at mrbill.net>
" 
" 
" The first system I ever owned that ran a proper UNIX (not Linux, which
" was in the 0.99.13 kernel era at the time; 1995) was a UnixPC.  
" 
" I thought it was so cool that I could plug in its (1200 baud) modem, then
" dial out from the modem bank at work (an ISP) and log in remotely to my 
" system at home.

several of us bl employees had our unixpcs networked into work via
uucp.  it was awesome to print something on my home system and find it
at the lineprinter at work in the morning!

later, i even had a limited newsfeed running on it.

i have all the technical docs for it too - somewhere.  i started
working on a qic40 tape driver but never went very far - in over my
head, really.

one thing i regret - they were -this-close- to releasing sVr3 for it
when it was cancelled.  performance was supposed to be noticeably
better than the bsd-based convergent os.

didja know the unixpc was one of the reference platforms for ksh88?  i
can assure you it compiles straight up out of the box, done it myself.

" What I'd *really* love to find would be an AT&T 6386 WGS, with some 
" proper AT&T dumb terminals, and run SVR4 on it.  One of my first exposures
" to "big iron" was in (junior high I think) I took a tour of the local
" electric co-operative [0], and got a glance at their huge DEC/VAX setup
" along with a few 6386 boxes in their "control room".  

i also still have a tty5425 in my basement.  i had it out on property
removal pass which came up for review when i was out on vacation one
year.  a rather crusty friend and co-worker sitting in for the boss
also out decided the tty wasn't worth tracking and wrote it off...  i
got the phone next to my chair the same way.

the -totally-cool- terminals to have would be 730mtg, the final
generation of the 'layers' terminals.  they could support 7 windows
over a serial line.

" (I don't know if AT&T made/rebranded any further x86 systems...)

i don't think at&t ever made x86 systems.  the early ones were
olivetti made; the later ones like the 6386 were iirc intels.
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
adh at an.bradford.ma.us                       and think what none thought