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From: bobl@shark.UUCP (Bob Lewis)
Newsgroups: net.works,net.legal
Subject: Re: xeroX slime ad warning
Message-ID: <1669@shark.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Apr-86 20:21:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: shark.1669
Posted: Mon Apr 28 20:21:43 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 2-May-86 20:45:16 EDT
References: <719@hoptoad.uucp> <1846@calmasd.CALMA.UUCP> <321@pyramid.UUCP>
Reply-To: bobl@shark.UUCP (Bob Lewis)
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 29
Xref: linus net.works:1050 net.legal:3056

In article <321@pyramid.UUCP> wendyt@pyramid.UUCP (Wendy Thrash) writes:
>In article <1846@calmasd.CALMA.UUCP> jpm@calmasd.CALMA.UUCP (John McNally) writes:
>>... Xerox also built the SIGMA-7 computer - the first
>>good time-sharing machine - way ahead of its time, it even
>>pre-dated the IBM 360 (TSO - yyuk!).  How many people have ever
>>heard of the SIGMA series of multi-user computers?
>
>Did Xerox really BUILD the Sigma-7, or did they BUY it?  The Sigma-7 was
>produced by Scientific Data Systems as a successor to their earlier 940
>(which some considered a fairly good, though kludgy, time-sharing machine).

>I'll confess some fuzziness on chronology.  I worked for SDS in the summer
>of 1966 and again in 1967 (my intro to programming!) and followed things
>with interest thereafter, but can't remember whether the Sigma-7 came out
>before or after the Xerox purchase.

What Wendy says is correct.  The Sigma-7 preceded the creation of Xerox
Data Systems (formerly SDS).  Rumors that the name change occurred as a
result of the Students for a Democratic Society are entirely in my own
imagination.

Just to put things in perspective, one of the big plusses of the Sigma-7
was its programmable microcode, and the gang at UCSD was really looking
forward to getting a machine which could emulate an IBM 1130!  The name of
the emulating OS was "Meta-4", one of the best examples of pre-UNIX puns in
the computing industry.

	- Bob Lewis
	  ...!tektronix!tekecs!bobl