--
Jorge Cisternas M.
jcis...@puc.cl
>I heard, from what appeared at the time to be a reliable source, that ULTRIX
>was the first OS to actually run on an Alpha.
True. ULTRIX was ported to Alpha as a research project, and it was the
first OS to run on Alpha. It's not widely known, but not a secret, that
the original big Alpha AD units (they weren't even prototypes, since they
were never intended for sale but only for software development) required
MIPS ULTRIX systems as consoles and boot devices, even when they ran VMS.
None of this, of course, has anything to do with the merits or popularity
of the OSes themselves.
___Pete
kai...@acm.org
+33 92.95.62.97, FAX +33 92.95.50.50
I recall no hint that ULTRIX would ever be ported to Alpha. It seems clear
enough that ULTRIX is in a maintenance-only mode on the older platforms.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry C. Shannon For a sample of The Newsletter That Takes
Editor, Shannon Knows DEC No Prisoners, email your snailmail address
sha...@illuminata.com to newsl...@illuminata.com. Do it today.
This is correct. The machines were called ADU's, or Alpha Development Units.
They were washing-machine sized boxes with DECstation 5000's sitting atop
as a host/IO processor and front-end. The ADU was in a way a Turbochannel
option on the DECstation; that's how they talked.
Ultrix ran on the ADU's initially, then OSF. Development of OSF for Alpha
proceeded on the ADU for quite a while as the first examples of what would be
known as the DEC 3000 model 500 started trickling in (this was known internally
as the Flamingo.) Support for the ADU was dropped before the first release
of DEC OSF/1 for Alpha shipped, but some intrepid souls within the company
managed to keep them going for themselves through the first two releases
of the OS.
I don't recall talk of officially supporting Ultrix on the Alpha. It only
ever ran on the ADU and was never carried to the production machines.
Alpha/Ultrix was an AD effort.
--
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Digital Equipment Corporation Domain: f...@zk3.dec.com
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Rule of Acqusition Number 112: Never have sex with the boss' sister.
No, and they never said Ultrix for Alpha. They only said OSF/1 for
Alpha AND Mips, and never delivered OSF/1 for Mips. But considering
the migtaion path, this decision is a good one.