Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!dali.cs.montana.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ncar!husc6!paperboy!meissner From: meissner@osf.org (Michael Meissner) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: PR1ME 32I mode (was Re: Porting OSes (was DEC RISC Architecture)) Message-ID: Date: 5 Nov 90 15:40:12 GMT References: <4462@trantor.harris-atd.com> <107038@convex.convex.com> <3970@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> Sender: news@OSF.ORG Organization: Open Software Foundation Lines: 29 In-reply-to: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk's message of 2 Nov 90 15:43:14 GMT In article pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes: | On 31 Oct 90 16:02:21 GMT, meissner@osf.org (Michael Meissner) said: | | meissner> It's interesting that when I started on the C compiler (~81 or | meissner> 82), the person who had done the functional and product specs, | meissner> had estimated that DG would sell only a handful of licenses, | meissner> and a few machines. The entire UNIX market segment was | meissner> estimated to be a few Universities, AT&T, and the Bell | meissner> operating companies. | | The b****y suckers. Didn't they know that despite DEC's active | opposition 10% of VAX sales were at that time for BSD (which was not | even a product), and BSD was ARPA sponsored and thus virtually a must | for the entire research sector, not just Universities? Didn't they know | that AT&T and the BOCs were the single largest DEC customer, and Unix | was their chance to get a foot in the door there? Ever heard of ARPA, | TENEX and the DEC-20? UNIX sales on VAXen didn't hit their stride until about 1982 or 1983. When the person who had preceded me had done the research, the UNIX market was small, and almost all PDP-11 based. Everybody has 20/20 hindsight. :-) -- Michael Meissner email: meissner@osf.org phone: 617-621-8861 Open Software Foundation, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA, 02142 Do apple growers tell their kids money doesn't grow on bushes?