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From: tyager@maxx.UUCP (Tom Yager)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga UNIX
Summary: Ayuh, I seen it...
Message-ID: <77@maxx.UUCP>
Date: 10 Aug 90 00:03:27 GMT
References: <15440027@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com> <1990Aug7.183454.20283@lavaca.uh.edu>
Organization: MAXX: Tom Yager's UNIX lab, Amherst, NH.
Lines: 47

In article <1990Aug7.183454.20283@lavaca.uh.edu>, jet@karazm.math.uh.edu (J. Eric Townsend) writes:
> In article <15440027@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com> guest@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com (Guest) writes:
> >When is Commodore planning on releasing their Amiga Unix in the US?  I 
> >have been waiting patiently for it...and I have never heard anything...
> 
> There's supposed to be a demo of Amiga UNIX in Houston sometime
> in late August, but I think it's a closed demo for NASA and some of
> its contractors.  (I'm doing my best to get into it, however, since
> I work for major university and am involved in purchasing. :-)
> J. Eric Townsend -- University of Houston Dept. of Mathematics (713) 749-2120
> Internet: jet@uh.edu

At the recent Usenix show in Anaheim, AT&T (of all people!) was showing the
new System V, release 4 on an Amiga 3000. The flack in the booth had no idea
how it was configured, but it was running. Apparently, the port takes some
advantage of the blitter because part of the demo was the image of an airplane
flying across an X window. It wasn't zippy, but much faster than I would have
expected for a little '030. Yep, there were lots of windows, and I was even
allowed to type a few commands into the Korn shell (or was it a POSIX shell?).
It sure looked like UNIX.

AT&T expects that Commodore will be one of the first, if not THE first
hardware manufacturer to produce a commercial release of V.4. That OS is
already shipping (to developers only, at a price of over $2000), but is
reportedly in a fragile state.

Widespread commercial distribution of V.4 to "reg'lar folks" is expected in
November from Intel, among others. If AT&T is right about Commodore's effort
being so much further along, perhaps we'll see something from them before
that?

That having been said, I have one question which I hope won't piss anyone
off unduly: Why would you want to run UNIX on an Amiga? I'm not being
critical, mind you, and I haven't chosen sides. I'd just like to hear from 
some of you what you feel the Amiga has to offer a UNIX user that you can't
get from one of the $5000 boxes from Sun or Apollo/HP. If the initial release
allows you to mix AmigaDOS and UNIX programs on the same box and screen,
then that's something, and my question is pointless. Failing that, what are
some of the other reasons for running UNIX on an Amiga?

(ty)

-- 
+--Tom Yager, Technical Editor, BYTE----Reviewer, UNIX World---------------+
|  UUCP: decvax!maxx!tyager          NET: maxx!tyager@bytepb.byte.com      |
| "I just bought...the Macintosh portable. And I took it back. Pain in the |
+--butt." --Harry Connick, Jr.-------I speak only for myself.--------------+