Splinter Unix?

[net.executioner]

In article <21621 at labrea.STANFORD.EDU> karish at denali.stanford.edu (Chuck Karish) writes:
>The ports of 4.2 and 4.3 to RTs are essentially vanilla Berkeley
>UNIX, not IBM products.  They were distributed to encourage
>development for the RT platform, and to get IBM involved in UNIX
>research in the universities.  IBM donated the machines (RTs)
>for that research.

	The IBM 4.3 product is not strictly vanilla BSD.  It now supports
	X Version 11, and the CMU Andrew system, including the Andrew 
	Distributed file system(vice).  The system now also runs on 
	the 6152 Academic System(ps/2 + risc coprocessor), and it has
	been rumored that in the last few month the 6152 has sold better
	than the RT ever did.

>I suspect that 4.2A and IBM/4.3 were not released to the world outside
>the universities specifically to AVOID presenting two incompatible
>products to their customers.

	The original reason the 4.2A was not released to commercial 
	customers was that it was developed by Academic Information
	System, an Independent Business Unit of IBM created to sell
	to universities.  The development groups have recently been
	moved from ACIS to the new Technical Computing Systems 
	division.  From what I hear they are now selling the 6152 and
	4.3 to commercial customers.


		Jeff Weinstein
		Computer Systems Lab
		Cal Poly State Univ.
		jeff at polyslo.uucp
		ucbvax!voder!polyslo!jeff