IBM UNIX (Was -- Re: VMS, UNIX, etc.)

[David H. Wolfskill]

In article <10168 at ulysses.homer.nj.att.com> ekrell at hector (Eduardo Krell) writes:
>....
>Well, IBM just announced a few days ago AIX (Unix) for a variety of
>their hardware: 3090s, 4381s, 9370s and PS/2-386s. AIX includes....

>I think IBM said this was a strategic program product
>I would call that a first step toward jumping on the Unix bandwagon...

Well, I understand that at UniForum, an IBMer stated publicly something
to the effect that as far as IBM was concerned, UNIX was spelled "AIX".
It is also my understanding that AIX was described (by IBM) as a
"strategic program product".

However, when I attended SHARE (a user group for companies that have any
of several IBM 370-type mainframes running some flavor of either MVS or
VM) during the first week of March, I happened across a rather curious
session.

It was about yet *another* variant implementation of UNIX from IBM;
naturally it is different from all others that have been offered so far.
It is called "IBM/4.3" -- a port of BSD4.3 for the Reduced Technology :-)
PC.  It seems quite interesting; it seems to be based on some of the
work done at CMU for Andrew (and some of that code is part of IBM/4.3).

However, it is only to be marketed to the academic community...!

At least IBM/4.3 -- unlike the 370-based flavor(s) of UNIX that IBM
offers -- can have the "man" pages online....  (Of course, with IBM/4.3,
you'd probably have them on a server.)

Somehow, I think I will be rather skeptical of IBM's stance on UNIX for
some time yet to come....  (I guess -- considering that my present
employer insists on using IBM equipment -- it's just as well that I'm
supporting MVS/XA, rather than UNIX... at the present time....)

Oh, yes:  I think this discussion may be somewhat far afield from
comp.wizardry....  Mail is welcome, though.

david
-- 
David H. Wolfskill
uucp: ...{trwrb,hplabs}!felix!dhw68k!david	InterNet: david at dhw68k.cts.com