NCR Tower & UNIX versions
Robert L. Fair
>>> >By the way, does the Tower have a Unisoft port?
>>> > Thanks in advance,
>>>
>>>The answer is yes, ( I think ) NCR UNIX release 1 was indeed
>>>UNISOFT based, and had a number of funnies like the ex problem
>>>above.
>>>
>>>To fix these problems ( & others...) NCR did their own
>>>in-house port for their UNIX Release 2 (Out Spring 1985)
>
>Unix release 2 was done by Human Computing Resources of Toronto, Ontario. This
>was allegedly Unix System V, and was developed primarily for the Tower XP. I
>haven't worked enough with it to comment.
>
>I believe that the only Unix software development done at NCR Columbia (where
>the Tower is made) is NCR's System Administrator menu package. NCR San Diego
>was working on their own System V port, but that was for the 9300/9400 series
>of minicomputers. That whole idea got trashed because corporate management
>didn't want the 9300/9400 to compete against Columbia's Tower XP and 68020
>products.
>
>ncr-sd, are you guys listening? I want to make sure I'm not talking through
But where did you get your information ??
Before joining Bellcore I worked for NCR England on Tower & UNIX support,
and also spent quite a while in the NCR Columbia Development plant
in Jan/Feb this year.
At that time, NCR were certainly doing there own porting/development work,
including things like brand new new device drivers (one in particular was
support for the Sky FPA board, which I had quite a lot to deal with).
Other things which came from Columbia are the new version of 'cc'
(based on 'pcc') and all the file locking and power fail recovery stuff.
Also I've met some of the guys from NCR E&M San Deigo, and
don't believe **anything** you've heard about the UNIX 9300.
There were real (practical) reasons for it being dropped.
An independent company in the UK is doing their own
UNIX port (BSD-4.2 I think) onto the 9300, but they are actually
microcoding the 9300's processor - the 32-bit chip set is great
for that, its a real shame more people don't use it.
Rob. Fair.
Bell Communications Research
Piscataway NJ
{gamma|topaz|bambi}!pyuxv!cim2
Peter Percosan
project were not at NCR E&M San Diego - rather they were at the now
defunct NCR-TP Systems Engineering group. I think that the guy that
said that the 93/9400 project was droped to remove the competition
on the TOWER was close to correct, the 9300/9400 performance was not
great enough (especially with respect to cost) to have it be the bigger
brother of the TOWER in the NCR UNIX family. In other words - it was going
to be in roughly the same performace market at a greater price.
By the way, CELERITY COMPUTING has had a succesful port of UNIX 4.2bsd
for many months working on the NCR 32 (chip set in question). It is
interesting to hear that another company is finding a use for that chip set.
Peter Percosan
FORMERLY NCR-TP Buisness UNIX Department
Currently Motorola Advanced Technology Center, Austin Tx
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