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From: root@uwspan.UUCP (John Plocher)
Newsgroups: news.groups,comp.unix.xenix,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: comp.unix.unix-at Intro and Charter
Message-ID: <160@uwspan.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Oct-87 17:16:26 EST
Article-I.D.: uwspan.160
Posted: Tue Oct 27 17:16:26 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Oct-87 06:10:29 EST
References: <152@uwspan.UUCP> <2628@cbmvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: root@uwspan.UUCP (John Plocher)
Followup-To: news.groups
Organization: UW-Madison Spanish Dept
Lines: 53
Keywords: microport newsgroup created soon unix-at history
Xref: mnetor news.groups:1818 comp.unix.xenix:1062 comp.sys.ibm.pc:9476

+---- In article <2628@cbmvax.UUCP> George Robbins writes:
| +---- In article <152@uwspan.UUCP> John Plocher writes:
| |  distributers (Bell Tech, Intel, Interactive Systems...) was not a Good 
| |  Thing to do.  Because of this, the name was changed to:
| |  
| |  	comp.unix.unix-at
| +----
|                                        I see no need to get religious about
| it, people using microport under another name or something similar but
| different can share the group untill their problems start to differentiate.
+----

[ Followups are being diverted to news.groups ONLY ]
George,

  First some history:

  286:
     AT&T hired Intel to port System5 to the 80286 line of CPUs
     Intel hired (for a while) DRI to help/do the port.
     Intel finished the port and it was validated by AT&T

     Some of the people from DRI/Intel formed their own company, which they
     called "Microport".  Their aim was to sell the Unix which they had worked
     on to the AT market.

     Microport thus sells (retail) to Joe User.  They also sell (non-retail) to
     Bell Tech who turn about and resell it.

 386:
     AT&T hired Intel (again) to do the port to the 80386
     Intel hired Interactive systems to do the port for them.
     Interactive finished the port, and gave it to Intel who in turn gave it
     to AT&T who validated it.

     Microport distributes a version of this code from ISC/Intel.
     Bell Tech distributes the generic code from ISC/Intel
     ISC sells a version of the code which they had sent to Intel/AT&T


Then some conclusions:

  Thus it is *Intel*, and not Microport, that is the kingpin of these
products.  Since the group is to be for ALL of these different versions,
calling it "microport" would not be calling "a spade a spade".  By rights,
it should really be called comp.unix.intel.

How 'bout it?  I'll be the first to admit that unix-at is a bit far fetched,
but, as I see it, the name isn't really as important as you make it seem.
We need a group where we can discuss Unix on "AT" class machines, no matter
what it is called!

-John