$400 3B1 systems and my alleged demise

[Thad P Floryan]

Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated!  :-)

What is NOT exaggerated is the time I have to spend doing real work, averaging
about 16-18 hours/day recently.  MY priorities are, and must be: (1) myself,
(2) my job, and (3) hobbies and other "outside" interests.

I'm going to be rambling a bit in this posting since I've been operating on
about 3 hours sleep a night recently, so please bear with me.  If the subject
of UNIXPC/3B1/7300 doesn't interest you, stop reading now; this is cross-posted
to comp.sys.amiga, comp.sys.att and unix-pc.general due to the vast interest
expressed regarding my recent posting "AT&T Aids for the Handicapped".

For those who remember prior to September, I used to post about 10-20 times a
week; since then (as you'll note if you look at the dates and times of my less
than 1 posting a week average since then), I've only been able to spend about
15-30 minutes a day on "Usenet", and even then on holidays and at "odd" hours
such as 5am.  Since the "average" email response requires about 10-15 minutes
of time, my email backlog has presently exceeded 300 messages.  Yes, email HAS
arrived here at PORTAL, and I'm extremely dubious of reports of actual email
"bouncing" since both "sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad" & "thad at cup.portal.com"
are valid and registered addresses; if your email HAS truly bounced, then some
primary or intermediary site has brain-damaged mail software which requires
fixing, and THAT problem is beyond my control.

In any event, the vast majority of recent incoming email concerns my posting on
Thanksgiving Day regarding the $400 UNIXPCs; if you read that posting, you'll
remember I even spelled out "four-hundred" to eliminate the possiblity of typos
and ambiguity.

That deal WAS legitimate.  As of 11:30 PM Wednesday, 22-Nov-1989, when the
Users' Group meeting adjourned (yeah, 4-1/2 hour meetings are the norm), there
were still 10 machines of the original 18 available.  Unbeknownst to me, some-
time after the meeting and before my posting the next day (Thanksgiving), the
remaining 10 systems were sold (as I discovered the following Tuesday, 5 days
later).

Because of the interest expressed in the 3B1/7300/UNIXPC, the remainder of this
posting describes how to locate such deals for yourself, what to look for, what
is generally available, and what you may be getting yourself into (sic).

For starters, let's look at the 18 systems that were recently mentioned.  One
system was sent up here on "approval." It was the basic 3B1.  Keyboard, 85 MB
hard disk, floppy, monitor, 2MB RAM, UNIX (CTIX) SysVR2.something (specifically
UNIXPC SW release 3.5.1.4).  It was lacking a mouse and was accompanied by ZERO
documentation.  I opened it up during the Users' Group meeting, checked it out,
powered it up, and it booted fine, was quiet, and operated well.  It came from
some medical research place and was loaded with hospital-, medical-, and
pharmaceutical-type programs.  No ``C'' compiler or other goodies one typically
associates with UNIX; in other words, it was an application-based system.

OK, so WHAT would one have to do to this system to bring it up to the standards
"we" expect of the systems "we" use?

Documentation.  Figure spending $300-$400 to get the Prentice-Hall/AT&T SVR3
books (ALL of them).  Or spend $??? to get the Foundation Set docs and floppies
from AT&T and/or a VAR or other retailer.  You still don't have a C compiler.
For that, you buy the $495 (list) Development Set (Users' Manuals, Sysadmin
manuals, GSS and other manuals, and the 20 or so floppies).  Every UNIXPC was
accompanied by a Foundation Set when it was newly purchased; your guess is as
good as mine where such docs and floppies are now reposing.

Software.  The current release of System V for the UNIXPC is "3.51" with the
2-floppy "3.51a" FixDisk.  Figure another several hundred to upgrade the kernel
and utilities to this release level; you'd be foolish not to do so if you expec
t
to use the system for anything serious.   The Development Set includes, among
other things besides the C compiler, source debugger and such, the Documentatio
n
Preparation Set, Enhanced Editors, Curses & Terminfo Programmer's Package, the
VDI (Virtual Device Interface) and GSS Drivers' C-language bindings, and the
Windowing Utilities/XT-Layers.  All that is in addition to the User Agent (akin
to FACE) which is part of the Foundation Set.  A *LOT* of BSD-isms are included
with the UNIXPC system software, and if you get the StarLAN package you also
get a version of Streams with TLI.

If you like to "roll your own", the GNU EMACS, GNU cc, and THOUSANDS of other
PD and freely redistributable software products operate just fine on the
UNIXPC.  Versions of sockets and MANY other goodies are available, all with
source.  For those of you reading this in the Amiga newsgroup, one person at
CBM working on AMIX (the SVR4 for the Amiga) is Mike Ditto, and he's posted a
lot of goodstuff over the years for the UNIXPC.  TeX is also available.

One system I demo'd at the last West Coast Computer Faire in the AT&T Users'
Group booth had but 512K RAM and a 20MB HD, and was running GNU EMACS, GNU cc,
several animated graphic (one ray-traced) demos, and some games, ALL AT THE
SAME TIME; the HD was paging like crazy, but it all worked.  Hundreds of
commercial software products are also available, such as office, legal and
hospital management systems, compilers, utilities, dBASE III, MicroSoft Word,
MultiPlan, SuperComp, Sound Presentations, etc etc etc all running native on
the UNIXPC.

The "larger" 3B1 is NO slouch in the performance department.  Though it sports
a MC68010 at 10MHz, it uncompressed the 4.3MB (to become 11.2MB) GNU EMACS
18.55 tar file FASTER (to/from same HD) than did my 14.32 MHz 68020 Amiga; the
specific 3B1 system used for this test had OS 3.51a, 3.5MB RAM and a Miniscribe
3085 22mS ST-506 drive; the Amiga had OS 1.3, 6.5MB RAM and a Maxtor XT-3380 on
its SCSI bus.  This was using the IDENTICAL version of compress|uncompress|zcat
compiled on each respective system.  Times were 13:36 (min:sec) for the UNIXPC
and 19:54 (min:sec) for the Amiga; just for "fun", same software required 3:09
to uncompress on an HP9000/840 with HP-UX v. 3.01.  (As an aside, I think this
really means the Amiga's FFS filesystem needs some work, especially when
reading/writing different files on the same HD; UNIX does MUCH better in this
regards).

Hardware.  To extend the built-in serial port, parallel port and phone line
ports, you'd probably want:
	 1. 512K or 2MB RAM expansion card(s),
	 2. dual RS-232c serial cards
	 3. dual RS-232c serials cards with 512K to 1.5MB RAM
	 4. VoicePower card, Answering Machine, Voice Editor and other software
	 5. DOS-73 card (8MHz 8086 MS-DOS 3.1 complete IBM-PC on a card which
	    plugs into an explansion slot, runs in a window under UNIX, and
	    provides, among other things, another serial (i.e. COM2) port.
	 6. tape backup card, drive and interface cable (external drive)
	 7. StarLAN card (AT&T Ethernet, 1 Mbit/second, IEEE 802.2/802.3)
	 8. TCP/IP WIN/3B card (10 MBit/sec Ethernet)
	 9. Expansion chassis with 5 more expansion slots
	10. more and/or larger hard disks (necessitating Foundation Set with
	    its formatting and diagnostic software, essential system programs,
	    etc.)
	11. Various bits and pieces (e.g. WD2010 disk controller, VidRAM kit,
	    etc. to enhance one's computing pleasure).

All the above is stuff you'd need and/or want for an already operating system.
If you somehow acquired a "clunker", you'd want the Reference Manual (with all
the schematics ($350 list, though a special deal presently exists for brand-new
manuals at $100 a copy)) and the Service Manual ($150 list), etc.

$400 quickly escalates UNLESS you've already a system with docs, floppies, etc.
to which a second system becomes a serious and inexpensive adjunct.  If you're
a hobbiest or dedicated UNIX hacker, none of these matters are obstacles or
stumbling blocks.

Now, what are the other alternatives?  I constantly get and see reports of
people finding and buying such systems, with docs and floppies, for prices
ranging typically between $700 and $1,200.  Checkout the unix-pc.general and
comp.sys.att newsgroups.  Also misc.forsale and misc.wanted.  And, here in
Northern California, people have found used systems advertised in places such
as the classifieds of the San Jose Mercury News and other newspapers for prices
well under $1,000.  Many of the trade journals I get (such as Computer Reseller
News, etc.) carry ads in the back from vendors selling used systems and parts.

If you want BRAND-NEW systems, with full Foundation Set software and docs,
warranty and AT&T HotLine support, I've seen 3B1 systems at MicroAge (USA-wide)
for around $2,000.  These are systems whose original invoicing (and printed-on-
the-box-pricing) exceed $9,000.  MicroAge and Hamilton/Avnet also carry a
selection of brand-new accessories for the systems (at commensurate pricing).

Now, what are we talking about if you see a used UNIXPC system advertised for
sale?  There are two models, with variations.  In the net newsgroups, "7300",
"UNIXPC" and "3B1" are often used interchangeably.  The systems ARE functionall
y
identical.  They are ALSO binary code compatible with the Convergent Miniframe
and S4/Safari models, and the Motorola 6300 (NOT the AT&T 6300, which is an
MS-DOS-like machine); I've also heard a rumor that a functionally equivalent
model was mfd for some other "big" computer company, but have no further info.

The 7300 model typically has a 512K RAM motherboard and a 10 or 20MB hard disk.
The 3B1 models have a 1 or 2MB RAM motherboard and a 40 or 67 MB hard disk (the
"67 MB" is an 85 MB drive, formatted, with a large swap partition; remember,
these systems are virtual and shared memory, demand-paged UNIX boxes).  The
7300 has a 195W power supply, the 3B1 a 245W power supply.  The 7300's case
permits only an internal half-height HD; the 3B1's case permits an internal
full-height HD.  The 3B1 also sports a "better" floppy drive (quieter, spring
eject, etc.).  The 7300's motherboard CAN be upgraded to 2MB RAM if you're
handy with desoldering and soldering tools; I know, I've upgraded several
already; in fact, I've upgraded three 7300 systems to be full 3B1 systems
(using Augat IC sockets, 256Kx1 DRAM chips, a WD2010 disk controller chip, and
a Miniscribe 3085 HD).

Software archives exist at cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu [IP 128.146.8.62] and
MANY other places.  Collections from AT&T's (now defunct) "The STORE!" VAX
used for UNIXPC software distribution are available around the country.  Many
postings to comp.misc.sources and comp.unix.sources work just fine on the
UNIXPC, as do most of the GNU offerings.  And the unix-pc.{ general | source |
uucp | bugs } hierarchy and comp.sys.att is quite active in regards to software
and hardware support for the system (supplementing the $$$ subscription to
AT&T's HotLine).

Other hardware sources to check out are evident from postings to the net per:

One that immediately comes to mind is Discovery Electronics in Georgia; their
contact is Jan Isley whom I believe is the President of Discovery (previously
known as DDS).  Discovery has a wide variety of goodies for the system, along
with used systems, keyboards, mice, etc. for sale.  He (Jan) can be reached at:

	800/346-8243 and 404/425-5700,
	jan at bagend.UUCP or uunet!ginosko!ctrlsol!emory!skeeve!bagend!jan

Another contact point (e.g. VoicePower, expansion chassis, Reference Manual,
P5.1 and other hardware mods, etc.) is Lenny Tropiano.  He is acting mostly as
intermediary and can be contacted at:

	Lenny Tropiano
	ICUS Software Systems
	P.O. Box 1
	Islip Terrace, NY  11752

	or at:	lenny at icus.islp.ny.us
		{ ames | pacbell | decuac | hombre | talcott | sbcs }!icus!lenny

Per my own postings, I've located SF Bay Area sources of power supplies and
keyboards, any many net-readers availed themselves of those when I posted
their availability.

There are other sources, and I'm sure I'm going to hear a LOT about my
neglecting to mention them here!  :-)

So, I hope this posting clears up the confusion surrounding my recent absence
from the net, and provides some information to help you locate whatever you're
seeking.  For those who've sent email asking about the systems I mentioned in
my Thanksgiving Day posting, I hope this answers your questions; for those
who've asked additional questions, I'll be replying over the next several
weeks, time permitting.  My business requires several trips to some out-of-
state sites over the next several weeks regarding the installation of some
software I just completed, so I "may" be incommunicado for awhile, though I
will be at the AT&T meetings in Sunnyvale, CA, on Dec. 20th and 27th.

Thad Floryan [ thad at cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]