bill@carpet.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) (04/15/89)
I never expected the level of interest in my hare brained scheme
that my mail bore out. Some time back, embedded in a Microport
flame, I suggested that we contribute to a fund to hire John
Plocher and pay him to get the license for V/AT and build a staff
to support it.
Some of that is moot now since John's safely docked at Sun Microsystems,
but my mail suggests that my idea's not as wacky as I had thought.
First off, thanks to the many who replied, unfortunately I didn't start
saving names and addresses until this morning. I'd like to re-state
my suggestion in the form of a semi-proposal and gather reaction to it.
I think we need a champion to do this, John was a logical choice, but
now I'll collect nominations/volunteers. This individual should be
paid and paid well enough to live off of it if it's a full time job
(which I think it is). Some mechanism would have to be set up to
administer that, but that discussion is very premature.
I suggested that Intel and AT&T were the logical sources for a 286 UNIX
license. I don't know what rights Intel has to it, but I'm pretty sure
that they did the original port that Microport worked from. Both firms
should be amenable to discussion. Intel is pretty busy in the chip
business and isn't as enthusiastic about the multi-source 80286 as they
are about the 80386 and beyond families. They never seemed to do a lot
with the 286 UNIX if they have a stake in it. AT&T had a very nice 286
UNIX for the PC 6300 PLUS (I used it for years) but never took it to
another 286 model after the PLUS was discontinued. PLUS owners who also
had access to V/AT agreed that AT&T's product was more elegant and I
can say that Simul-Task was the most stable and seamless DOS under UNIX
product I have ever tried.
This indicates to me that Intel doesn't want to pursue '286 software
and that AT&T doesn't want to pursue UNIX on the 80286. Depending
on that assumption should make either or both approachable to some
kind of arrangement. I think that trying to take over V/AT per se
would just cost a lot of time and grief with creditors and bankruptcy
stuff. Further, we might never get anywhere if it drags out and would
we really want it? All of it? Personally, I'd be delighted if I could
run PC 6300 PLUS UNIX on my AT clone.
If the "approachability" assumption is valid, then someone has to do it,
but before that can happen, some bucks need to be raised. Every mail
response I have gotten indicates that we would be willing to contribute
something in order to have a viable 286 UNIX, no real mention of any DOS
capability. I suspect that most of us do what I do, boot native DOS
at the /system5 prompt. The median feeling seemed to be that $50 to
enroll and $10-50/year to sustain is about right for this. There was
also general agreement that similar reaction would be received from 286
owners who aren't on the net (could we buy Microport's mailing list?).
This proposal gets shakier as it goes :-) Assuming that we have a vendor
for the license and money to buy it, we need an entity to get it going
and keep it going. I'm of the opinion that this should be someone who
is savvy with AT clones and UNIX, preferably retired or semi-retired but
willing to work full time, probably at home. The retirement status
would be some assurance that the individual was not using this venture
for career enhancement and would have some immunity to income fluctuation.
This person would be assisted, at first, by a staff of volunteers who
would perform the technical work in exchange for free or bartered product
support. These people would have to bring what ever we bought up to date
with device drivers and bug fixes. They should be already-capable V/AT
hackers. I think we could recruit them from usenet since the communication
requirements are already met.
I am intentionally omitting how we would set it up, who would run it,
and what we would do with it if it was successful. I like the idea
of giving the FSF people money to do it, but I question how much
cooperation and empathy we would get for an 80286 platform. So the
questions are these:
1) Would you contribute some sum in pursuit of this if it was planned
staffed and organized to your satisfaction? How much, initial and
ongoing?
2) Volunteers and nominees for the champion?
My questions are based on the assumption that for each of the mail
replies I got there were maybe two more who noticed, were interested,
but didn't reply. If that's the case, then please, all of you mail
a reply. Sure, this is our news group, but if there's much volume, I
doubt that we want to read every stitch (though I will) and I will
post a summary in a couple of weeks. Please respond to the .signature
address, ssbn is better known to the mailers and it will forward to me.
--
Bill Kennedy Internet: bill@ssbn.WLK.COM
Usenet: {texbell,att,killer,sun!daver,cs.utexas.edu}!ssbn!billrick@pcrat.UUCP (Rick Richardson) (04/16/89)
In article <196@carpet.WLK.COM> bill@carpet.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) writes: > The median feeling seemed to be that $50 to >enroll and $10-50/year to sustain is about right for this. How about just organizing a mass purchase of cacheless, slow memory, 1st generation 386 motherboards to replace the 286 mothers? They ought to be dirt cheap. Or maybe 386SX barnacle boards for 286 mothers. Then kiss the problems goodbye. The catch is: will Interactive give the 75% deal on 386/ix products to owners of uPort 286 products upgrading to 386es? Failing that, another alternative is to find out if Venturcom is still in the System V 286 UNIX market, and would give an upgrade deal to uPort'ers. Remember Venturcom? The first PC UNIX vendor, and they recently got a shot in the arm from the AT&T/Air Force deal for the Prelude database/spreadsheet package. My V/AT is gathering dust in a corner (bought in '87, used 1 week). I went back to Venix System V/286, from whence I started. Venix has been fine for me for over three years now. No kernel double panics. The stock serial driver is nothing to write home about, but I did a little hack work to support the 16550A chips (feb '88) and dial in/out. The stock driver worked OK at 19.2, except when you switched virtual terminals. Since the console display driver was shutting off interrupts too long during a vt switch, the only quick fix was the hardware (16550A) one. To drive the point home, "pcrat" does all of our comms and news, is a 286 with a Digiboard-4 (all parts are 16550A's), and runs Venix System V. It only goes down when the power fails (last ones were XMAS, Feb 11, and March 29). In comparison, the 386 running 386/ix 1.0.6 would run stock serial ports at up to 9600 without any trouble, but 19.2 was not 100% reliable. Now, with 386/ix V.3.2, the stock ports can't do 9600 anymore. I'd have scrapped the 286 long ago, but it does a dandy job handling the comms, and I'm tired of fighting *that* problem. -- Rick Richardson | JetRoff "di"-troff to LaserJet Postprocessor|uunet!pcrat!dry2 PC Research,Inc.| Mail: uunet!pcrat!jetroff; For anon uucp do:|for Dhrystone 2 uunet!pcrat!rick| uucp jetroff!~jetuucp/file_list ~nuucp/. |submission forms. jetroff Wk2200-0300,Sa,Su ACU {2400,PEP} 12013898963 "" \d\r\d ogin: jetuucp
plocher%sally@Sun.COM (John Plocher) (04/16/89)
From article <196@carpet.WLK.COM>, by bill@carpet.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy): > I think we need a champion to do this, John was a logical choice, but Thanks for the nomination. It really made me feel good inside. :-) I can't accept it, of course, but thanks for asking! I don't think I'll have time to do *lots* of work, but if you need a source of technical info, I'm email-able. > that they did the original port that Microport worked from. Both firms Who knows - I sure don't. But, the code they have is Microport Version 1.35 level - First Customer Shipped product from Microport was 1.36. If nothing else, Microport did a LOT of work getting the show stopper bugs out of the base release. Things like bootstrapping, configuration, installation, and motherboard hardware interfacing (Clock, DMA...) are NOT in the base release :-( (at least not in usable form) > AT&T's Simul-Task was the most stable and seamless DOS under UNIX ... > I'd be delighted if I could run PC 6300 PLUS UNIX on my AT clone. But the 6300+ has SPECIAL hardware to support DosMerge - The AT doesn't have it. > at the /system5 prompt. The median feeling seemed to be that $50 to > enroll and $10-50/year to sustain is about right for this. There was ASSUME a total of 10,000 owners of V/286. ASSUME 30% are interested. Year 1 3,000 people * $50 = $150,000 $150,000 Working funds minus $ 80,000 AT&T Source License for ONE CPU $ 20,000 AT&T Source License for a SECOND CPU $ 20,000 Computers for the above license (4-8Mb mem, 350Mb, VGA...) $ 5,000 Legal Fees for incorporation and Insurance $ 10,000 Production and shipping costs (low) $450,000 AT&T Royalties at $150/copy Remember, The current license is only valid between Microport and You. Not Easter Computer and You. -------- ($435,000) Salary :-( > owners who aren't on the net (could we buy Microport's mailing list?). Call Jim Brain at (408) 441-0140 and ask him. > Bill Kennedy Internet: bill@ssbn.WLK.COM > Usenet: {texbell,att,killer,sun!daver,cs.utexas.edu}!ssbn!bill I hate to be a pail of cold water, but you really need to figure out the costs, determine the number of customers, and THEN set a price. Not the other way around. -John Plocher
john@jwt.UUCP (John Temples) (04/17/89)
In article <730@pcrat.UUCP> rick@pcrat.UUCP (Rick Richardson) writes: >Failing that, another alternative is to find out if Venturcom >is still in the System V 286 UNIX market, and would give an >upgrade deal to uPort'ers. I'm running Venix/286 on my home system. I've also got all of the driver sources to Venix. VenturCom sells them for a reasonable $1,000. I got a Venix upgrade about 6 months ago (version 2.4), so I think they are probably still supporting the product. VenturCom is now a reseller of 386/ix with their own real-time enhancements, so I imagine that's where much of their effort goes these days. I'm going to be calling VenturCom soon to find out about getting the driver sources upgraded to 2.4; I could find out if they would be interested in a uPort upgrade deal if there is sufficient interest on the net. -- John Temples - UUCP: {uiucuxc,hoptoad,petsd}!peora!rtmvax!bilver!jwt!john
slf@well.UUCP (Sharon Lynne Fisher) (04/17/89)
>> owners who aren't on the net (could we buy Microport's mailing list?). > Call Jim Brain at (408) 441-0140 and ask him. Lotsa luck. I've been calling Jim Brain at least daily for more than a week. He's always "with a client" and hasn't returned a single one of my calls (unless he didn't leave a message on the answering machine, which I suppose is a remote possibility). Is there really a person by this name, or is he a fake?
dougm@isieng.UUCP (Doug Moran) (04/19/89)
In article <11343@well.UUCP>, slf@well.UUCP (Sharon Lynne Fisher) writes: > Lotsa luck. I've been calling Jim Brain at least daily for more than a > week. He's always "with a client" and hasn't returned a single one of my > calls (unless he didn't leave a message on the answering machine, which I > suppose is a remote possibility). Is there really a person by this name, > or is he a fake? There really is a person by this name. However, I doubt if anyone will be able to ever get through to him. I met him before I left, and he stikes me as a rather slippery character. He's very "political." You know; if you ask him a question that he doesn't want to answer, he'll answer a question that you didn't ask. Have fun. Incidentally, seeing him in person doesn't get you any more activity than trying to call him over the phone. Doug Moran {ames,decwrl,...}!pyramid!isieng!dougm
bill@carpet.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) (04/20/89)
Sharon and Doug are right, Jim Brain is a virtual person. Even if you
succeed in connecting with a corporeal person (which is HARD to do),
you will get as many answers as you ask for until you are disgusted or
satisfied.
--
Bill Kennedy Internet: bill@ssbn.WLK.COM
Usenet: {texbell,att,killer,sun!daver,cs.utexas.edu}!ssbn!bill