comp.sys.3b1.*?
Thad P Floryan
thad at cup.portal.com
Thu Nov 29 21:57:30 AEST 1990
das at trac2000.ueci.com (David Snyder) in <942 at trac2000.ueci.com> writes:
I agree 100%. We MUST get rid of the reference to "unix-pc".
Hmmm. One person during our AT&T Users' Group meeting this evening shared
his thoughts about the matter, and he presented a compelling case to NOT
give up the "UNIXPC" name because then the 8088/8086/80286/80386/80486 users
would snatch up "UNIXPC" for themselves and then suffer massive infusions
of cross-postings by US, whose machines are labelled "AT&T UNIXPC" ! :-)
There are some things about which everyone seems in agreement:
1) some major backbone sites such as H-P Labs (Palo Alto) do NOT forward the
present unix-pc.* hierarchy, causing distribution problems for many. As
to what they do forward, much material has absolutely NO benefit for H-P
(such as the alt.sex.pictures, the humor groups, etc.), so the statements
attributed to their site administrator are not self-consistent. Go figure.
As Brian suggested, some sites are simply NOT administered properly.
2) though there are many generous offers providing feeds of unix-pc.*, for
many potential recipients that offer entails long-distance calls ($$$).
3) mainstream newsgroups appear to be forwarded anyplace with no problems.
4) the problem is NOT limited to unix-pc.* I've received numerous emails
over the past 12 months asking about the "u3b.*" newsgroups (for 3B2s),
the presence of which I only casually mentioned in other postings. So
THEY are having distribution problems, too. The way I see it, people
who aren't receiving newsgroups don't know what they're missing and thus
don't complain. Kinda reminds me of how certain "Eastern bloc" countries
would control their people by keeping them ignorant. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.
And there some things about which the opinions are divided:
1) the "name" of the new newsgroup(s)
2) the hierarchy of the new group
3) the location (and possible moderation) of source postings of the new group
Now for some of MY opinions:
1) the number of installed machines and whether they are in current production
is irrelevant. There are more 3B1/UNIXPC/PC7300 systems in the world today
than NeXT machines, yet the NeXT users have their comp.sys.next newsgroup
because they shared an interest, petitioned for a group, and voted it in.
I see a VERY large (and GROWING) interest in the UNIXPC and that interest
needs to be served by a reliable and a focused newsgroup. Evidence grows
daily the unix-pc.* newsgroup is not well-distributed despite all the good
intentions of those who wish it to be so.
2) separation of UNIXPC-related source from the general discussions seems a
good thing, because it's my observation that any newsgroup containing the
letters "*source*" enjoys both a longer expiry time and automatic archiving.
An established area already exists (comp.sources.*) and the inclusion of an
area for the UNIXPC makes sense. It's my feeling there will be more there
than in, for example, comp.sources.mac (since PORTAL keeps *sources* online
a l-o-n-g time, I just checked that newsgroup: only one (1) posting, and
it's dated October 8; the present state of unix-pc.sources on PORTAL
comprises 39 "collection" entries still online dating from Aug.8 to Nov.28)
3) as for a moderated *.sources, my feeling is we propose whatever it takes
to assure a vote victory. Should be NO problem! The last posting to
comp.sources.misc was Oct 14, asking for a new moderator, hence the
incredibly increased traffic in alt.sources (which is NOT well-distributed).
My preference is for NO moderation since the inclusion of a moderator in
the distribution chain increases the time-delay for what "may" often be a
critical need (much like my "extra drains in the pipe" example :-)
"Kwik 'n dirty" sources such as my recent {send;pass;recv} would continue
to be in the general discussion newsgroup because the sources were only
incidental.
4) there should be only one "group" which combines all of the existing
unix-pc.general, unix-pc.bugs, unix-pc.uucp, and unix-pc.test
It appears we all read ALL the stuff anyway, so a SINGLE, central location
appears to be a logical change which also reduces newsgroup "clutter".
5) so now we focus our attention on what the <???> in comp.sys.<???> and
comp.sources.<???> should be named.
My belief is the choice for <???> should be orthogonal in the sense that a
comp.sys.FOOBAR would have a corresponding comp.sources.FOOBAR. Yes, this
is not quite the existing scheme of things, but just because someone else
screwed up does not mean we should continue the SNAFU; let's show them we
can do it RIGHT.
This decision is NOT easy since there really is a family of related systems
for which the <???> will/would be a valid forum. As others have stated,
the related systems include the s4, safari, Miniframe, Motorola 6300 and
Motorola 6350, UNIXPC, PC7300, 3B1, and there may be others ... someone
from CT or UNISYS/NCG would have to fill in the blanks here.
For me, the issue is clouded even further since it IS one OEM who actually
manufactured all the above systems, and whose current product line *IS*
upward compatible. I've run 3B1 binary executables directly on the CT
MightyFrame (a 68020 machine), and the UNISYS 4040 (their 68040 box) will
also run the same executables.
Regarding names/numbers, Amdahl has a new line of 7300 UNIX mainframes, and
AT&T's new line (mfd by Pyramid) is called the 7000-series. Starts to
get confusing, eh? :-)
So, any "7300", "PC7300" or "7000" as "<???>" is OUT. Period.
And recent posts have shown that owners/users of Motorola and Miniframe
systems are NOT ignorant and have found "our" present hierarchy. And
please note my use of the word "ignorant." Contrast the material found
in "our" newsgroup and in comp.sys.att with the oft-times utter bilge and
garbage in many of the present "mainstream" groups and any sane person
would conclude that "we" have more "rights" to better distribution than
those other groups. A sobering thought, no?
This leaves us with the other extant identifiers "UNIXPC" and "3B1". The
BYTE Magazine system review (May 1986) was headlined "The AT&T UNIXPC".
All documents of any consequence refer to the system as UNIXPC. All use
I've seen of "3B1" has been only in this newsgroup, though I often refer
to the system as "3B1/UNIXPC/PC7300" in other newsgroups. Some people have
told me they LIKE the "snob" appeal of "3B1" since it appears to be a REAL
computer contrasted with a "PC"; different strokes for different folks.
My suggestion is we KEEP the label "UNIXPC" since it clearly identifies the
system as a desktop UNIX workstation, in fact, one of the first affordable
ones, and NOT let the label drop to be picked up later by some other
special interest group. I haven't seen any great volume of material
posted to unix-pc.* from the DOS-based world, thus I don't perceive any
problem since I'm sure many have chastised the "offenders" via email.
So, in summary, I'm proffering:
comp.sys.unixpc, and
comp.sources.unixpc
and also for the archive name at osu-cis to be changed from "att7300" to
be whatever finally gets voted and approved.
Thad Floryan [ thad at cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]
More information about the Comp.sys.att
mailing list