lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA (04/06/85)
Though I really hate to say this, it certainly is true that Unix as an operating system environment only has a comparatively limited life ahead of it in anything resembling its current form. Even many of the tools are showing serious signs of age and the perpetuation of old designs, often with many known deficiencies, is not encouraging. I can't help but wish that the sorts of efforts that could create a completely new operating system with new, well designed tools (not just "copies" of Unix stuff) would get as much attention as a Unix rewrite. Unix and its tools are primarily being perpetuated because ambitious newer stuff (that might not be compatible with the old design but that would still be much better) isn't being written. A truly ambitious effort would be to break loose from the Unix mold with a totally different sort of OS and new tools and applications packages that weren't based on the Unix design framework. There's a tremendous amount of work to be done in this area, and while it wouldn't be easy, it would be a lot more useful in the long run than basing work on essentially a "duplicated" Unix. --Lauren--
PDL@MIT-XX.ARPA (P. David Lebling) (04/08/85)
On the contrary, Unix and its tools are primarily being perpetuated because the cost-effectiveness of porting Unix to a new processor is much higher than writing a new operating system. Let's face it, they made one good decision which outweighed all the later bad ones, which was to write Unix in an easily portable language. Dave (pdl@xx) -------
lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA (04/09/85)
That's exactly my point. The ease of porting the system has (in effect) slowed development of other operating systems. Major efforts to write a different sort of system have been stymied by the cost/effectiveness of just moving Unix to another piece of hardware. My point is that a completely different sort of system, with completely different tools that are not tied to the existing Unix conceptual framework, might be an interesting task for a group of people who were NOT particularly interested in cost/effectiveness issues but rather in technical issues and the state of the art. I've been working with Unix since the dim days of Version 5 (not to be confused with System V!) and I'm not knocking Unix. What I am saying is that to the extent that new software efforts spend much of their time emulating the same old Unix patterns from the mid-70's, a lot of new ways of doing things, that could well be much better in the middle to long run, will be ignored. --Lauren--
hgp@houem.UUCP (04/09/85)
>> Though I really hate to say this, it certainly is true that Unix as >> an operating system environment only has a comparatively limited life >> ahead of it in anything resembling its current form. Even many of the >> tools are showing serious signs of age and the perpetuation of old designs, >> often with many known deficiencies, is not encouraging. >> I can't help but wish that the sorts of efforts that could create a >> completely new operating system with new, well designed tools (not >> just "copies" of Unix stuff) would get as much attention as a Unix >> rewrite. >> Unix and its tools are primarily being perpetuated because >> ambitious newer stuff (that might not be compatible with the old >> design but that would still be much better) isn't being written. >> A truly ambitious effort would be to break loose from the Unix mold >> with a totally different sort of OS and new tools and applications >> packages that weren't based on the Unix design framework. There's >> a tremendous amount of work to be done in this area, and while >> it wouldn't be easy, it would be a lot more useful in the long run >> than basing work on essentially a "duplicated" Unix. >> --Lauren-- Sounds interesting Lauren. Perhaps you could give us some examples of what could be written but isn't. Also, what are some of the shortcomings of the ``UNIX design framework'' and why would it be an ambitious project to break out of it? Howard G. Page ..!ihnp4!houem!hgp From houxm!whuxl!whuxlm!akgua!mcnc!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!brl-tgr!tgr!vortex!lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83 based; site houem.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA Path: houem!houxm!whuxl!whuxlm!akgua!mcnc!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!brl-tgr!tgr!vortex!lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA From: lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA Newsgroups: net.micro Subject: Unix and the future Message-ID: <9753@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Sat, 6-Apr-85 00:18:34 EST Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.9753 Posted: Sat Apr 6 00:18:34 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 8-Apr-85 13:23:06 EST Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA Lines: 22 Though I really hate to say this, it certainly is true that Unix as an operating system environment only has a comparatively limited life ahead of it in anything resembling its current form. Even many of the tools are showing serious signs of age and the perpetuation of old designs, often with many known deficiencies, is not encouraging. I can't help but wish that the sorts of efforts that could create a completely new operating system with new, well designed tools (not just "copies" of Unix stuff) would get as much attention as a Unix rewrite. Unix and its tools are primarily being perpetuated because ambitious newer stuff (that might not be compatible with the old design but that would still be much better) isn't being written. A truly ambitious effort would be to break loose from the Unix mold with a totally different sort of OS and new tools and applications packages that weren't based on the Unix design framework. There's a tremendous amount of work to be done in this area, and while it wouldn't be easy, it would be a lot more useful in the long run than basing work on essentially a "duplicated" Unix. --Lauren--
steve@BRL-TGR.ARPA (Stephen Wolff) (04/09/85)
Lauren - You seem to be telling us that because UNIX is a good product it's difficult for the competition to get a look in. Odd; that's how I thought the system was *supposed* to work. -s
lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA (04/10/85)
Of course. That's precisely why I'm saying that significant departures from the commercially successful Unix framework would best be made by non-commercial (volunteer if you wish) groups, who AREN'T necessarily interested in the economic aspects of the existing framework. Ideally, such groups would be working to do exactly what the commercial interests don't necessarily want to do: take a risk on a new sort of operating system and new tools that are NOT based on the existing Unix framework. There are very solid reasons why (from a commercial standpoint) firms are likely to stick with a known commercial winner. And that's well and good. All I'm saying is that the non-commercial people represent the ideal forum for producing something new that isn't based on the Unix conceptual models. If they don't do it, it is unlikely that anyone else will for some time to come. --Lauren--
oz@yetti.UUCP (Ozan Yigit) (04/10/85)
In article <9809@brl-tgr.ARPA> lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA writes: >That's exactly my point. The ease of porting the system has (in effect) >slowed development of other operating systems. Major efforts to write >a different sort of system have been stymied by the cost/effectiveness >of just moving Unix to another piece of hardware. That seems to be a gross underestimation of research and development devoted to operating systems and interaction methodologies. I also do not think that any organization capable of porting UN*X to machine-X, is proven capable of writing some operating system that is above and beyond UN*X. >... that to the extent that new software efforts spend much of their >time emulating the same old Unix patterns from the mid-70's, a lot >of new ways of doing things, that could well be much better in the middle >to long run, will be ignored. > >--Lauren-- I agree that there are better ways of doing things, and they should be explored. However, these things do not come off the air. It usually follows the pattern of evolution and mutation. (remember MULTICS -> UN*X or RSX -> VMS) we are yet too see UN*X mutate beyond recognition. Never know what will come off it. Oz (wizard of something or another, no doubt..) Electric: {ihnp4 | allegra | decvax | harpo}!utzoo!yetti!oz
abc@brl-tgr.ARPA (Brint Cooper ) (04/10/85)
I think that your notion of a "non commercial" group experimenting with state-of-the-art concepts in operating systems is called "research" and is often done in universities.
tracy@hcradm.UUCP (Tracy Tims) (04/11/85)
> You seem to be telling us that because UNIX is a good product > it's difficult for the competition to get a look in. > > Odd; that's how I thought the system was *supposed* to work. From the perspective of previous operating systems, UNIX is "good enough". That is, it ports quickly, can support an number of useful applications, and lends itself well to program development. It is fairly clean and small. I think it's clear that we could design an operating system (flavour unspecified) that would potentially be better than UNIX at all the things we think UNIX is so good at. The problem is that UNIX may be "good enough" that too few people will be able to see beyond it, and these too few people will not have enough leverage to cause the creation of a new (portable/popular) system for a while yet. (This last statement is intended in a general economic sense). UNIX will also be tenacious because the amount of "portable" software written for it and the number of different machines it runs on will give it lots of inertia. Personally, I think UNIX sucks. It just sucks less than most of the other stuff out there. Tracy Tims ihnp4!utzoo!hcr!hcradm!tracy Human Computing Resources Corporation utcsri!hcr!hcradm!tracy Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 416 922-1937 dciem!hcr!hcradm!tracy
doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (04/11/85)
> There are very solid reasons why (from a commercial standpoint) > firms are likely to stick with a known commercial winner. Unix? A commercial winner??? So far Unix(tm) has generated a lot of *predictions* of becoming a commercial winner. And so far Unix has failed rather miserably to live up to those predictions. What O/S has Unix outsold? The non-existent S1? Cray-1's O/S? Unix has been living on the incredible predictions of its impending inevitable success. Those predictions are starting to ring hollow. I fearlessly predict that Unix will continue to do well in the "niche" market it already owns: systems used for developing programs which will be burned into PROMs. I also predict that Unix will not make any major inroads into other applications. -- Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug
lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA (04/12/85)
Unfortunately, many University researchers, in some cases primarily interested in getting things done quickly for the sake of quick publication, tenure, and grant proposals, are just following along with the old models like bulls with rings in their noses, instead of striking out in new directions. In a very real sense, due primarily to the three factors mentioned above, many academic researchers are just as concerned with economic factors as the commercial organizations, though in a slightly different manner. --Lauren--
ross@dsd.UUCP (Evan Ross) (04/12/85)
> ...Unix and its tools are primarily being perpetuated > because the cost-effectiveness of porting Unix to a new processor is > much higher than writing a new operating system. Let's face it, they > made one good decision which outweighed all the later bad ones, which > was to write Unix in an easily portable language. > I am not overly fond of Unix, but I must partially agree. Unix is not growing because it is a better operating system than others on the market, but simply because it is relatively portable. I personally prefer working on VMS, but readily I admit that it will never attain the popularity that Unix has. -- Evan Ross {ihnp4, decwrl!amd} !fortune!dsd!ross "Unix, it's not just a trademark, it's an adventure"
jdb@mordor.UUCP (John Bruner) (04/12/85)
UNIX is my favorite operating system, but I've had the good fortune to work with people from MIT who don't care much for it (and who continually complain about its shortcomings). I've also been privileged to have used MIT-MULTICS (after studying its concepts in I-don't-know-how-many courses when I was at Purdue). MULTICS is not without shortcomings either (I like UNIX better), but the chance to compare the two side-by-side and seriously examine both has been very beneficial to me. UNIX was developed on very small systems. It runs well (or at least, it once did) on small machines like PDP-11's. Many of its concepts are tuned toward small systems. To some degree, as UNIX moves up to larger and larger hardware its development is hampered by these small-system assumptions. Example: core dumps. My understanding of core dumps on the PDP-7 is that they were restartable. On a PDP-11, having a process dump core and poking around in it post-mortem is awkward, but compared to other mechanisms of the time (on similar hardware) it probably wasn't too bad. At least the core file couldn't be larger than 64K. However, on today's machines a giant (multi-megabyte) core file is a big liability. Once the kernel starts dumping core there is no way to stop it, and it does a good job of tying up the buffer pool while it is running. The debugging environment on MULTICS is a clear winner. Another example: temporary files. The C compiler (for instance) runs in five separate phases (preprocessor, compiler proper, optimizer, assembler, linker) [six on the PDP-11 where the compiler is split into "c0" and "c1"]. This is a lot of fork()s and exec()s, and the intermediate results are passed between phases by temporary files (or, more recently, by pipes). This isn't unreasonable when the machine has only a 64K address space (or less!), but why do compilers for larger machines still follow this model? Why not incorporate the preprocessor, compiler, optimizer, and assembler into one program? (An assembler, if desired, can be separate.) The interphase information would then be passed in main memory. I can come up with more examples, but this article is getting long already. There are ways to address these issues in UNIX, but such changes come at the expense of muddying an originally-clean concept and producing a system whose overall design is full of warts. At some point it becomes desirable to start over from a new set of basic ideas. UNIX has been available outside of Bell (oops, AT&T) for more than ten years now, and its age is starting to show. -- John Bruner (S-1 Project, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) MILNET: jdb@mordor.ARPA [jdb@s1-c] (415) 422-0758 UUCP: ...!ucbvax!dual!mordor!jdb ...!decvax!decwrl!mordor!jdb
mat@amdahl.UUCP (Mike Taylor) (04/14/85)
> > There are very solid reasons why (from a commercial standpoint) > > firms are likely to stick with a known commercial winner. > > Unix? A commercial winner??? So far Unix(tm) has generated a lot of > *predictions* of becoming a commercial winner. And so far Unix has > failed rather miserably to live up to those predictions. > > What O/S has Unix outsold? The non-existent S1? Cray-1's O/S? > I fearlessly predict that Unix will continue to do well in the "niche" > market it already owns: systems used for developing programs which will > be burned into PROMs. I also predict that Unix will not make any major > inroads into other applications. > -- It must have outsold the Cray-1 OS, because Cray has switched to Unix(tm) for the Cray-2. -- Mike Taylor ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,amd,sun}!amdahl!mat [ This may not reflect my opinion, let alone anyone else's. ]
mash@mips.UUCP (John Mashey) (04/16/85)
> Unix? A commercial winner??? So far Unix(tm) has generated a lot of > *predictions* of becoming a commercial winner. And so far Unix has > failed rather miserably to live up to those predictions. > What O/S has Unix outsold? The non-existent S1? Cray-1's O/S? > Unix has been living on the incredible predictions of its impending > inevitable success. Those predictions are starting to ring hollow. > I fearlessly predict that Unix will continue to do well in the "niche" > market it already owns: systems used for developing programs which will > be burned into PROMs. I also predict that Unix will not make any major > inroads into other applications. > Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug When you predict the past, be careful; it's easy to be proven wrong. 1) It is clear that there has been way too much marketing hype around UNIX for the last few years, especially from people who really don't understand it very well. Nevertheless: 2) Either I don't understand the English language at all, or the "fearless prediction" above is not exactly based on awareness of facts. Now, some facts: 2.1) UNIX applications have clearly gotten far outside the niche described. 2.1.1) Inside ATT & the RBOCs, there are thousands of systems that run UNIX; A small sample of what they do includes: a) Running laboratory equipment [inside Bell Labs] b) Running manufacturing processes [inside ATT Technologies] c) Running telephone repair [611] [Automated Repair Servive Bureau] See BSTJ, July-August 82, v61, No. 6, Part 2. d) Assigning Main Distributing Frame equip (i.e., telephone line assgnt) (COSNIX UNIX variant, one of the earlist) e) Running switching machine attached processors and systems for operator support (DMERT derivative on 3B20Ds) f) Running office automation [ATT Communications /Long Lines, esp] g) Running a wide variety of specific applications: see last 7 articles of the original BSTJ UNIX issue, Jul-Aug 1978, 57, no 6, part 2. None of the above is particularly secret; since I'm not there any more, I have no idea of the current worth of UNIX-related h/w and s/w, but I'd be surprised if it were less than $1Billion. 2.1.2) I'm less familiar with applications outside ATT, but let's try a few: a) Graphics applications at a raft of places, such as LucasFilm. b) Graphics and engineering workstations (many) c) Network Operations centers [BBN & elsewhere] d) Office automation systems of various sorts[some current, some future] old example: Air Force Data Services Center (?) text processing e) ??? Inside the NSA: I'm not sure what they do in there, but they've sure had UNIX a LONG time, starting with PWB/UNIX in 75/76. 2.2) It's hard to tell exactly how many UNIX boxen are around. I've seen estimates in fairly conservative, non-hype articles of 150,000 by YE84. Since I'm not a marketeer, I don't have numbers I believe at my fingertips, but I have to believe that there are at least a few $100M/year of UNIX boxes being shipped [if one only adds up the revenues of UNIX-based companies]. Of course, there is really a lot more, but it's always murky. Maybe somebody out there has some good numbers. Anyway, as always, UNIX is no panacea; it's important to know what it's good for and what it isn't and to separate reality from the hype. Nevertheless, it's hard to see the fit of the "fearless prediction". -- -john mashey UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!glacier!mips!mash ARPA: mips!mash@SU-Glacier.ARPA DDD: 415-960-1200 USPS: MIPS, 1330 Charleston Rd, Mtn View, CA 94043
ian@utcs.UUCP (Ian F. Darwin) (04/18/85)
In article <9838@brl-tgr.ARPA> lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA writes: >... significant >departures from the commercially successful Unix framework would >best be made by non-commercial (volunteer if you wish) groups, >who AREN'T necessarily interested in the economic aspects of the >existing framework. Ideally, such groups would be working to >do exactly what the commercial interests don't necessarily want >to do: take a risk on a new sort of operating system and new >tools that are NOT based on the existing Unix framework. Dennis Ritchie has written extensively on this topic. See the article in CACM, August 1984, Vol 27, Nr 8, page 758. ``Reflections on Software Research'' discusses how UNIX came to be, and whether it could have evolved in a development environment. There is an important note on the nature of the Computing Science Research Center at Bell Labs. I would rather urge you to read it (last year's CACM should be available in many libraries) than try to summarise it. Consider yourself urged. His conclusion would seem to agree with Lauren: ``If we [the Labs after deregulation] can keep alive enough openness to new ideas, enough freedom of communication, enough patience to allow the novel to prosper, it will remain possible for a future Ken Thompson to find a little-used CRAY/1 computer and fashion a system as creative, and as influential, as UNIX.'' -- Ian Darwin, Toronto uucp: {ihnp4|decvax}!utcs!ian Envoy-100: I.Darwin Bitnet: ian@utoronto
doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (04/18/85)
me> Unix? A commercial winner??? So far Unix(tm) has generated a lot of me> *predictions* of becoming a commercial winner. And so far Unix has me> failed rather miserably to live up to those predictions. me> I fearlessly predict that Unix will continue to do well in the "niche" me> market it already owns: systems used for developing programs which will me> be burned into PROMs. I also predict that Unix will not make any major me> inroads into other applications. > 2.1) UNIX applications have clearly gotten far outside the niche described. > 2.1.1) Inside ATT & the RBOCs, there are thousands of systems that run UNIX; This is a *commercial* success?? AT&T wrote and *owns* Unix. Unix is a *trademark* of AT&T (wasn't it slick how I worked that in?). They didn't "sell" it to themselves. > 2.1.2) I'm less familiar with applications outside ATT, but let's try a few: > a) Graphics applications at a raft of places, such as LucasFilm. > b) Graphics and engineering workstations (many) No significant number of *graphics* workstations have been *sold* with Unix on them. Many have recently been announced, very few are even available yet. A number of *engineering* workstations have, but that is the market which I acknowledge Unix is dominant in and will indeed retain. > c) Network Operations centers [BBN & elsewhere] > d) Office automation systems of various sorts[some current, some future] > old example: Air Force Data Services Center (?) text processing Unix for word processing?? Is this a joke or something?? > e) ??? Inside the NSA: I'm not sure what they do in there, but they've > sure had UNIX a LONG time, starting with PWB/UNIX in 75/76. Might not NSA need to develop programs to be put into PROMs? > 2.2) It's hard to tell exactly how many UNIX boxen are around. I've seen > estimates in fairly conservative, non-hype articles of 150,000 by YE84. Somehow, I'm not impressed with 150,000 sales. IBM sold twice that many PCjr's last year, and considered it a dismal failure. How many VAX/VMS systems are around? How many IBM MVS systems are around? > Since I'm not a marketeer, I don't have numbers I believe at my fingertips, > but I have to believe that there are at least a few $100M/year of UNIX > boxes being shipped [if one only adds up the revenues of UNIX-based companies]. Again, I'm not impressed. A couple of Cray's will produce that much revenue. IBM takes in *billions* a year from the PC alone. Heck, back in late '82 Jean Yates predicted that in '83 there would be 600,000 Unix systems sold, and Mini-Micro Systems magazine predicted that in '83 Microsoft would reap $2 billion off of Xenix licenses. After Yates left Gnostic Concepts, her job was taken over by Brian Boyle who (in '83) made a much more modest prediction that there would be 124,000 Unix boxes sold in '84. Now that '84 is behind us, he is quoted in the 2/85 issue of Unix/World, "...things have fallen somewhat short." Faced with terrible sales of the Apple ///, the Apple Computer Company declared the Apple /// to be a "commercial success". Then they fired everyone involved and stopped production. Claiming "commercial success" is easy. Actually succeeding commercially is something else again. Check out Fortune Systems, one of the largest (if not *the* largest) vendors of Unix boxes. Since they went public in early '83, they have lost money every quarter except 2Q84, when they made $40,000 on sales of $20,300,000. In the 1-3/4 years since they went public, they have lost over $40 million. In 4Q84, they took in $18 million and spent $33 million. Is this commercial success? Mark Ursino, Technology Services Corp, quoted in Computerworld 5/28/84: "In the past four years, there have been 70,000 microcomputers with Unix or a Unix derivative sold. Apple shipped 70,000 Mackintoshes in four months." Fortune sells a 68000/Unix system, the Mack is a 68000 without Unix. Which one is a commercial success? Did you notice that Atari is *not* offering Unix on its new 68000 "ST" line? -- Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug
chenr@tilt.FUN (Ray Chen) (04/23/85)
People seem to be missing a key point. The success of an operating system also depends on the hardware that it runs on. Face it. Unix as a real operating system requires a certain level of performance from the hardware. If the hardware can't meet that level, then the advantages of Unix become effectively useless. Myself, I think you need an 80186-class processor or better and a reasonable hard disk for Unix to be significantly better than a simpler operating system like MS-DOS. My prediction: As cycles and disks get cheaper, Unix will grow more and more popular. Watch the AT&T 7300 for an indication on how well Unix will do in the personal/small-business market. The 7300 has got the right amount of memory, the right processor, and the mandatory hard disk. I think it also will sell for < $5000 which puts it in the right price range. There should be an untapped market for a ~$5000 or less machine with 80286/68010-class power as the PC AT is too crippled to be a decent buy and the only other machines aimed at that market are hyped PC-clones which perform at the low end of "68000" power range. If the 7300 takes off, the last 3 1/2 years of this decade could be the "Unix years". Ray Chen princeton!tilt!chenr
mash@mips.UUCP (John Mashey) (04/24/85)
> me> Unix? A commercial winner??? So far Unix(tm) has generated a lot of > me> failed rather miserably to live up to those predictions. > > me> I fearlessly predict that Unix will continue to do well in the "niche" > me> market it already owns: systems used for developing programs which will > me> inroads into other applications. > > > 2.1.1) Inside ATT & the RBOCs, there are thousands of systems that run UNIX; > > This is a *commercial* success?? AT&T wrote and *owns* Unix. Unix is > a *trademark* of AT&T (wasn't it slick how I worked that in?). They mash> Wrong. We did "sell" it to ourselves. For some reason the belief persists that AT&T was and is a monolithic entity with decisions made from the top. There is a class of UNIX-based applications essentially mandated by AT&T and required of the BOCs. There is a much larger class that had to be sold a) internally vs other competitive possibilities or b) Externally, against competitive developments from BOCs themselves or against other companies selling to BOCs. Most of UNIX's spread inside Bell was a piecemeal, grassroots phenomenon; there was a whole lot of selling, not mandating. [The earliest UNIX_based system that I know of, COSMOS, had to fight for its life against internal and external competition. Project managers [including me] of oeprations systems spent a lot of time in a marketing/selling role. > > > a) Graphics applications at a raft of places, such as LucasFilm. > > b) Graphics and engineering workstations (many) > > No significant number of *graphics* workstations have been *sold* with > Unix on them. Many have recently been announced, very few are even > available yet. > > A number of *engineering* workstations have, but that is the market I didn't realize that these existed for PROM code. > which I acknowledge Unix is dominant in and will indeed retain. > > > c) Network Operations centers [BBN & elsewhere] > > d) Office automation systems of various sorts[some current, some future] > > old example: Air Force Data Services Center (?) text processing > > Unix for word processing?? Is this a joke or something?? No, it's not a joke. It is a fact that there exist successful UNIX-based OA systems ranging from mail & simple WP systems to complex text-processing ones, as in scientific journals: see Lesk & Kernighan, "Computer Typesetting of Technical Journals on UNIX", Proc. AFIPS NCC, 46 (1977), 879-888. [This is no claim that UNIX is optimal or any such thing, merely useful in certain applications.] As I recall, didn't the IRS just buy a horde of Zilog systems for OA? > > > e) ??? Inside the NSA: I'm not sure what they do in there, but they've > > sure had UNIX a LONG time, starting with PWB/UNIX in 75/76. > > Might not NSA need to develop programs to be put into PROMs? > Probably. [Actually, I think they were at first using PWB's like everybody else, but to allow better security.] > > 2.2) It's hard to tell exactly how many UNIX boxen are around. I've seen > > estimates in fairly conservative, non-hype articles of 150,000 by YE84. > > Somehow, I'm not impressed with 150,000 sales. IBM sold twice that many > PCjr's last year, and considered it a dismal failure. How many VAX/VMS > systems are around? How many IBM MVS systems are around? > This gets to the fundamental issue of this discussion: what is commercial success? [As I recall, lauren started all this: what did you mean?] I've naively been assuming that anything that generates revenues in the multi-$100M/year at least is probably commercially successful, notwithstanding the success of other products. One must of course be careful to compare apples and oranges: selling 1 Cray probably makes a salesperson happier than selling 10 PCjrs. > > Since I'm not a marketeer, I don't have numbers I believe at my fingertips, > > but I have to believe that there are at least a few $100M/year of UNIX > > boxes being shipped [if one only adds up the revenues of UNIX-based companies]. > > Again, I'm not impressed. A couple of Cray's will produce that much > revenue. IBM takes in *billions* a year from the PC alone. Fact: according to Forbes, CRAY revenues were $229M last year; I assume that was more than just a couple Crays [admittedly, they go further than most]. > > Heck, back in late '82 Jean Yates predicted that in '83 there would be > 600,000 Unix systems sold, and Mini-Micro Systems magazine predicted > that in '83 Microsoft would reap $2 billion off of Xenix licenses. > After Yates left Gnostic Concepts, her job was taken over by Brian Boyle > who (in '83) made a much more modest prediction that there would be > 124,000 Unix boxes sold in '84. Now that '84 is behind us, he is quoted > in the 2/85 issue of Unix/World, "...things have fallen somewhat short." As I noted in this sequence somewhere, one perceives the same sort of hype going on as happened inside BTL in 1977ish. I'm still not sure how one rates success or not, but I hope it isn't just by rating against predictions. > > Faced with terrible sales of the Apple ///, the Apple Computer Company > declared the Apple /// to be a "commercial success". Then they fired > everyone involved and stopped production. Claiming "commercial success" > is easy. Actually succeeding commercially is something else again. > > Check out Fortune Systems, one of the largest (if not *the* largest) > vendors of Unix boxes. Since they went public in early '83, they have > lost money every quarter except 2Q84, when they made $40,000 on sales > of $20,300,000. In the 1-3/4 years since they went public, they have > lost over $40 million. In 4Q84, they took in $18 million and spent > $33 million. Is this commercial success? Of course not. Not every PC clone company made it either. One can speculate on Fortune's problems. I speculate that problems may be less to do with UNIX than with other problems [that I'd rather not name here. P.S. I have worked with / do work with / worked for a bunch of ex-Fortune people and I still have the same opinion.] > > Mark Ursino, Technology Services Corp, quoted in Computerworld 5/28/84: > "In the past four years, there have been 70,000 microcomputers with > Unix or a Unix derivative sold. Apple shipped 70,000 Mackintoshes in > four months." Fortune sells a 68000/Unix system, the Mack is a 68000 > without Unix. Which one is a commercial success? Did you notice that > Atari is *not* offering Unix on its new 68000 "ST" line? > -- > Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug There is no reason for UNIX to be on everything; it is still a mini-computer OS being shoehorned onto microcomputers (in some cases). Just because one product is successful doesn't make another unsuccessful - one can make comparisons on sales, profits, units, etc, but there's no need to turn everything into a binary decision of successful vs unsuccessful. If you look at revenuess, it's real hard to tell - I'd expect that the ASP of the UNIX-based micros was $10-20K at least, somewhat more than a Mac. To summarize: 1) It is a demonstrable fact that UNIX is used commercially in numerous applications outside burning proms. 2) It is unclear what "commerically successful" means, esp. if viewed as a binary choice. 3) It is a demonstrable fact that UNIX-based companies have failed; it is also a fact that UNIX-based companies and UNIX-based parts of others have succeeded to some degree or other. 4) It is a fact that there has been more hype than necessary, and that this works likethe stock market: your companies profits go up, and your stock price drops like a stone, because some analysts had predicted even better profits. sigh.... -- -john mashey UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!glacier!mips!mash ARPA: mips!mash@SU-Glacier.ARPA DDD: 415-960-1200 USPS: MIPS, 1330 Charleston Rd, Mtn View, CA 94043
chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) (05/02/85)
>> d) Office automation systems of various sorts[some current, some future] >> old example: Air Force Data Services Center (?) text processing > >Unix for word processing?? Is this a joke or something?? No joke. If you haven't seen the Author system (TRW did it) you don't understand the possibilities. Unix doesn't live or die on Troff. Thank goodness. >> e) ??? Inside the NSA: I'm not sure what they do in there, but they've >> sure had UNIX a LONG time, starting with PWB/UNIX in 75/76. > >Might not NSA need to develop programs to be put into PROMs? Might not this be a random stab in the dark? Refuting facts with conjectures doesn't help... -- :From the offices of Pagans for Cthulhu: Chuq Von Rospach {cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA Who shall forgive the unrepentant?
JALBERS@SIMTEL20.ARPA (Jon Albers) (05/04/85)
As for the IRS buying a whole bunch of Zilogs for OA: I work at the IRS national office, and we have a total of 4 Zilog model 31 boxes, running the C-shell. They are nice boxes, execept when trying to use them for real-time processing, especially word processing. If you have more than two people useing XED(tm) at the same time, the 'space- heater' drasticly slows down, and this does not seem to be because of disk access. We have tried configurating our boxed different ways to re- duce the disk access time, but it has not helped much. Plus, you really have to have a hard-core C and UNIX hacker to keep the things running. It has been quite a struggle all along, but we do use the Zilog's in many different OA and data processing applications. There are 4 in my office, but thrughout the building, there are at least a dozen or so. We are working on networking them together, and have had some success with uucp and mmdf, however, the speed of the system presents problems there as well. JonAlbers (JALBERS@SIMTEL20) (Reply to me directly) -------