new groups for iX86 unix (was: Bell Tech 386 SysVr3)

[Robert Claeson]

In article <55 at volition.dec.com>, vixie at decwrl.dec.com (Paul Vixie) writes:

> UNIX System V release 4 is coming soon.  This is due to include more stuff
> from Berkeley, as well as new things from AT&T.  I understand that Xenix/386
> is already system-call compatible with UNIX V.3/386 (from ISC, Bell Tech,
> and Microport); I am expecting UNIX V.4/386 to be more or less cause the
> merge of Xenix and V/386 -- at least from a functional standpoint.

System V Release 3.2 is the result of the Microsoft-AT&T agreement to merge
UNIX and Xenix. Of course, AT&T added a bunch of their own inventions, such
as a curses that supports color etc, a form and menu language interpreter
(looks much like shell scripts) and kernel hooks for NFS. And a new 2K file
system (I have the papers to the left of my terminal). This version of
System V is shipping RSN (please correct me if I'm wrong) for both the 3b2's
and (ta-dam!) 386 processors! I hope most UNIX vendors for 286 and 386
machines will use this as their base (I want this on my '286 at home).

Similary, System V Release 4.0 will be the result of the Sun-AT&T agreement
to merge UNIX and SunOS. Rumours has it that they will use Berkeley's file
system... And it will have the ABI's for AT&T's own processors, the SPARC
chip, the 386 chip and maybe a few others (ABI's for 68xxx, 88xxx and
NS32xxx are under development). Release 4.0 will also have the Open Look
user interface (Open Look is not a windowing system per se, but a user
interface specification and guidelines implemented on top of various
existing window systems, such as X and NeWS) and NFS. And, I guess, a lot
of other new features (real-time extensions are promised).

Just to clean up the confusion a bit.