UN*X on PRIME computers

[David Grossman]

[]
Several of us here met with a group from Prime Computer to discuss their plans
for UNIX. Their product is currently in beta test with expected release 1st
or 2nd quarter of next year. It will not be a standard implementation of UNIX,
but rather a special version to run along-side PRIMOS, their proprietary OS.
It was not clear to me from the presentation whether or how all UNIX system
calls would be supported. The basic structure will be System V with Berkeley
utilities.

Some background: PRIMOS was developed from MULTICS, as was UNIX, in the early
1970's. It's got a heirarchical file system, but naturally some things are
different. The PICK operating system is offered right now as an `along-side'
product. In this scheme, both PICK and PRIMOS commands are available at `shell'
level.

The advantage to this method is that existing software written directly under
PRIMOS will work through UNIX without modification. And there does seem to be
quite a lot of communication software between PRIME's and with IBM.

This company seems to be growing quite rapidly, with sustained growth of 20%
to 30% per year over the last few years. They're now at $700M sales per year.
That puts them just into the Fortune 500.

David Grossman			..!ihnp4!we53!busch!dpg
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