Aucbvax.6253
fa.works
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!works
Sun Feb 21 22:24:49 1982
UNIX & Workstations & Networking ...
>From mike@BRL Sun Feb 21 21:53:24 1982
Nix on bit maped display (at least at this point) for the Fortune machine,
or the Wicat.
I had a chance to use both at the UNIX Convention. The Fortune machine
placed you at a (huge) menue to start, and allowed you to drop into
any one of a large number of levels. One of which was the UNIX Shell,
fortunately. A useful mechanism for novices, except that I hate
flying cursors around using the keyboard.
The Wicat does not currently run UNIX, although I am told that it
definitely will after they upgrade the processor board and the
system bus (!). Right now, what they have is a rather unsatisfying
clump of UNIX utilities ported to run under their own operating system.
With all the messiness that that entails. I understand that they are
promising real UNIX "soon".
At the convention, HCR anounced UNIX for the PERQ. The demo they did
was *ultra* spiffy, but it turned out that it was running under the
PERQ's native system, and was the software equivalent of a glossy
sales brochure. If they can come anywhere near the quality of the
demo with the result, I will be petty impressed. Of course, the PERQ
is rather expensive.
An interesting use of a 68000 was the BLIT, also reported on at the
convention. The intention here was to give PERQ type graphics and
multiple windows/viewports/whatever on a bit mapped display, with
communication to the host over 9600/19200 baud style async lines,
using the UNIX MPX link protocol (oh well). Very nice functionality
with extremely impressive response, considering what was going on.
This is definitely the way of the future for multi-user "workstation"
computers to interact with their users... The cost was also exceedingly
low, rumored to be around $6Kish for the prototypes, and $3Kish for
production models (which should be marketed by some little company
sometime in the not distant future). (For the curious, the designer
reported that BLIT was != Bacon Lettuce Interactive Tomato, and it
was != Bell Labs Interactive Terminal. DEC-10 fans will recognize
the origin).
Lots of groups are doing lots of neat things with 68000's. Most of
the ones I have heard about are using UNIX. Are there any other
sets of software being developed on the 68000?
On a slightly different note, one thing which distresses us here at
BRL quite a bit, is the fact that most of the people who are building
these workstations (Hewlett Packard, Wicat, Fortune, etc, etc) are
all answering "Oh yes, we support Ethernet, RS-232, bla, bla" networking,
so you can connect them all together and do distributed processing
and all these wonderful things. When pressed about what kind of
networking protocols they plan to use, the answer is ususally
something proprietary or special or otherwise incompatible.
Various parts of the Army (and other DoD elements are probably doing
the same thing) have started recommending that ALL computers,
where ever possible, support the DoD Standard Networking Protocol
TCP/IP. Our corporate goal is to be able to have uniform communications
(uniform in functionality and interface, not in speed) between
as many of our machines as we can, including all workstations sufficiently
non-braindamaged as to be able to multi-program. We would like to
be able to go on travel, and still be able to get to our personal
workstation through the nearest TIP. How do others feel about this?
Best,
-Mike
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