The death of Unix and the childhood of S1
LARRY at JPL-VLSI.ARPA
LARRY at JPL-VLSI.ARPA
Tue Aug 7 09:29:00 AEST 1984
From: Larry Carroll <LARRY at JPL-VLSI.ARPA>
What Little of S1 Corp. says about Unix and CP/M is essentially true. What
he implies I very much doubt: that his company's S1 operating system is
superior and the wave of the future.
In the first place, a new product has to be marketed well. Compare the ads for S1 to those of AT&T, Digital Research, and Microsoft--S1s makes grandiose claimsin an unattractive format. Try to talk to the people they send to places like
Comdex--unless you claim to be someone with the power to buy several hundred
copies of their product you'll be ignored.
More important, Unix, CP/M, and MS-DOS has a huge sociological base of knowledge-able people who can make the micro-Trinity work for their employers. And thereis a software base of applications programs that do useful work.
Lastly, the sellers of Unix, CP/M, and MS-DOS are not standing still. The threeoperating systems are coming ever closer together; industry-wide standards are
being developed, though we still have a long and painful transition time ahead
of us. I wish S1 or someone could spare us the problems we have today and will continue to have through the transition period, but I don't see any realistic
hope for their revolutionary tactics.
Larry @ jpl-vlsi
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