Re: VAXstation 4000/90 - ssh & display oddities

[Andrew Sporner <asporner%googlemail.com@localhost>]

The NS32K was part of the original Sequent machines (The Balance 8000
series), which were IIRC Multi-bus based (the Symmetry 2000 being the
follower and VME, which was based on Intel 3/4/586).   Sequent too
wasn't really a widely placed machine, but not trivial.  Our school
had one (4 CPU's).

When I worked for Hyatt Hotels, every hotel had an AT&T 3B2 computer
(the big box!) and they were slower than Molasses (no matter how many
users were online! It did scale well though and even with 32+ users it
did pretty well.)



On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 4:28 PM, KJ Seefried <ken%seefried.com@localhost> wrote:
> On 4/26/2012 10:45 PM, Gregg Levine wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hello!
>> I recognize the processor. The NS32K was a processor built by the
>> (late) National Semiconductor, that was loosely based on a design
>> created by WE (Western Electric)/Lucent/AT&T at about the same time.
>> But not the firm who wrote that port.
>
>
> Can you provide a reference, because it's the first time I've ever heard
> anyone assert this?  Last I checked, the National Semi folks seemed pretty
> clear the NS32000 was not-so-loosely based on the VAX.  They were also
> developed contemporaneously, both being released in the late 70's (1978?),
> so "based on" doesn't work from the timeline.
>
>> Interestingly enough the firm, (The phone company) originally built
>> that processor for the computers that spent their days running the
>> switches that presented us with the means of calling our friends and
>> families. In fact there was a whole series of them leading up to that
>> design.
>>
>> Sadly all of these designs never went very far.
>
>
> Dunno about that.  They made it 4 production generations (BELLMAC-32A,
> we32000, we32100 & we32200), had a modestly successful commercial run with
> the 3B series until all-the-world went RISC, and they're still running in
> telco switch gear around the world.  In some ways, that was better than the
> NS32000, which only made it 3-ish generations before NS gave up and
> re-purposed it as an embedded processor, and I'd bet a beer that more 3B2s
> were sold than all the NS32xxx based machines ever built.
>
>>
>> And I am not sure what AT&T did to convince UNIX to work under those
>> means and methods. I think there was a discussion on the TUHS list a
>> while back which described what did happen, and then pointed to the
>> Wiki pages on it.
>>
>>
>
> Not sure what was so hard about it (though I haven't looked at my WE32000
> databooks in probably 20 years)...rather conventional 32-bit processor,
> decent MMU, designed to support C language development.  Have to track down
> that article.
>
> KJ
>