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Aucbvax.6253 fa.works utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!works Sun Feb 21 22:24:49 1982 UNIX & Workstations & Networking ... >From mike@BRL Sun Feb 21 21:53:24 1982 Nix on bit maped display (at least at this point) for the Fortune machine, or the Wicat.

I had a chance to use both at the UNIX Convention. The Fortune machine placed you at a (huge) menue to start, and allowed you to drop into any one of a large number of levels. One of which was the UNIX Shell, fortunately. A useful mechanism for novices, except that I hate flying cursors around using the keyboard.

The Wicat does not currently run UNIX, although I am told that it definitely will after they upgrade the processor board and the system bus (!). Right now, what they have is a rather unsatisfying clump of UNIX utilities ported to run under their own operating system. With all the messiness that that entails. I understand that they are promising real UNIX "soon".

At the convention, HCR anounced UNIX for the PERQ. The demo they did was *ultra* spiffy, but it turned out that it was running under the PERQ's native system, and was the software equivalent of a glossy sales brochure. If they can come anywhere near the quality of the demo with the result, I will be petty impressed. Of course, the PERQ is rather expensive.

An interesting use of a 68000 was the BLIT, also reported on at the convention. The intention here was to give PERQ type graphics and multiple windows/viewports/whatever on a bit mapped display, with communication to the host over 9600/19200 baud style async lines, using the UNIX MPX link protocol (oh well). Very nice functionality with extremely impressive response, considering what was going on. This is definitely the way of the future for multi-user "workstation" computers to interact with their users... The cost was also exceedingly low, rumored to be around $6Kish for the prototypes, and $3Kish for production models (which should be marketed by some little company sometime in the not distant future). (For the curious, the designer reported that BLIT was != Bacon Lettuce Interactive Tomato, and it was != Bell Labs Interactive Terminal. DEC-10 fans will recognize the origin).

Lots of groups are doing lots of neat things with 68000's. Most of the ones I have heard about are using UNIX. Are there any other sets of software being developed on the 68000?

On a slightly different note, one thing which distresses us here at BRL quite a bit, is the fact that most of the people who are building these workstations (Hewlett Packard, Wicat, Fortune, etc, etc) are all answering "Oh yes, we support Ethernet, RS-232, bla, bla" networking, so you can connect them all together and do distributed processing and all these wonderful things. When pressed about what kind of networking protocols they plan to use, the answer is ususally something proprietary or special or otherwise incompatible. Various parts of the Army (and other DoD elements are probably doing the same thing) have started recommending that ALL computers, where ever possible, support the DoD Standard Networking Protocol TCP/IP. Our corporate goal is to be able to have uniform communications (uniform in functionality and interface, not in speed) between as many of our machines as we can, including all workstations sufficiently non-braindamaged as to be able to multi-program. We would like to be able to go on travel, and still be able to get to our personal workstation through the nearest TIP. How do others feel about this?

Best, -Mike

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