donn@sdchema.UUCP (07/05/83)
The UCSD Chemistry Dept. Research Resource Computer Facility is going to be putting together a 68K-based 'Molecular' workstation. NIH willing, we will produce these in quantity and sell them heavily discounted to academic biochemistry facilities across the US with hardware and software support. They will feature an integral array processor, very fancy graphics and all our sophisticated chemistry software for molecular modeling and refinement, gel electrophoresis, X-ray crystallography, etc. We want to run Unix on the workstation, not just because we know and love Unix but because we have lots of software that either runs on it already or that we can port to it easily and of course Unix is THE portable operating system. Since Unix is an important feature of the workstation, it would be nice to have the fastest, most advanced version running on it, namely Berkeley 4.2. We are concerned about how we are going to get it. Questions: a) Is Berkeley going to produce a 68K-flavor 4.2? b) If not, will some other academic/public institution do it? c) Will someone sell 4.2 commercially? Who? Note that we ideally want it unbundled from hardware. If you know the answers to any of these questions, please send me mail. I will summarize on the net if there is much interest. If this was all worked over long ago and I missed it, my apologies... Donn Seeley UCSD Chemistry Dept. RRCF ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdchema!donn (619) 452-4016 sdamos!donn@nprdc