Amiga Unix and A3000UX announcement

[Mike "Ford" Ditto]

I sent this to the comp.sys.amiga.announce moderator Monday night
and it hasn't shown up yet, so here it is in comp.unix.amiga.



Please see <944 at amix.commodore.com> in comp.newprod for an official
announcement of the A3000UX.  To avoid the commercial-advertisement-
in-a-tech-group syndrome, this article is a technical summary, and does
not discuss availability, price, or distribution channels.

Amiga Unix System V Release 4, Amiga Version 1.1 has been released for
inclusion in production A3000UX systems.

UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T.



BASIC HARDWARE DESCRIPTION
--------------------------

The A3000UX is:

	An Amiga 3000 (assuming for the moment that anyone reading this
	knows what that is) with 25 MHz 68030, and the usual Amiga stuff
	(keyboard/mouse/floppy/serial/parallel/graphics/video/etc.)

	4 or 8 Meg of fast 32-bit RAM on the motherboard

	A 100 or 200 Meg SCSI hard disk

	Ethernet card

	Amiga Unix System V Release 4 operating system software


The two configurations planned for immediate release are:

	8 Meg RAM + 200 Meg disk, with Ethernet card

	4 Meg RAM + 100 Meg disk, no Ethernet

(Actually, there are still rumors at this point that both configurations
might include the Ethernet card.)


The systems come with the Unix software already installed on the hard
disk.  An optional/extra QIC-150 streaming cartridge tape drive (A3070)
is necessary to reinstall the software or to install future software
updates or certain third-party software.  The A3070 drive is external
and removable, allowing one tape drive to be sufficient for several
A3000UX machines.


Amiga Unix as a software-only package is not yet available.  When it
becomes available, there is no technical reason why it can't support
A2000 systems as well as A3000 systems.  The details have not been
worked out yet.


BASIC SOFTWARE DESCRIPTION
--------------------------


Amiga Unix is AT&T Unix System V Release 4, the latest commercial
release of the genuine Unix operating system.  This release is notable
for its "merging" of previous AT&T System V releases, BSD Unix, and
features of SunOS and Xenix, along with new features from AT&T research
versions of Unix.  SVR4 is probably the most complete Unix system in use
today in terms of inclusion of all the elements that an experienced Unix
user would expect from previous Unix systems.  Amiga Unix enhances the
AT&T release with Amiga-specific features and commonly used freely
redistributable software.


SVR4 from AT&T includes:

	BSD Unix compatibility at the command and C source code levels

	AT&T System V compatibility

	Bourne, Korn, and C shells, all with BSD-style job control

	On-line manual pages and "man" command

	ANSI C compiler and complete software development system

	POSIX 1003.1 and X/Open XPG3 compatibility

	AT&T/Motorola m68k ABI (Application Binary Interface)

	Traditional Unix document preparation system (nroff, troff, -ms,
	-mm, -mv, eqn, tbl, pic, grap, troff->postscript filters, etc.)

	uucp telephone networking and electronic mail

	X window system (X11R3; X11R4 in next release)

	Open Look graphical user interface

	TCP/IP over Ethernet

	Berkeley internet programs (telnet, ftp, rlogin, rcp, etc.)

	AT&T RFS file sharing

	Sun NFS file sharing (client and server)

	Sun Remote Procedure Call functions

	Berkeley Unix sockets facility

	AT&T TLI networking interface

	/proc filesystem -- file-oriented process manipulation

	Virtual File Systems, including Berkeley Fast File System,
	traditional Unix file system, and "/proc"; others can be added

	Symbolic links

	Dynamically linked shared libraries

	New VM implementation: mapped files, address space control,
	dedicated disk cache replaced by VM filesystem access

	Selectable process scheduling classes, including time-sharing
	and real-time schedulers

... and other features too numerous to mention.


To that foundation, Amiga Unix adds:

	Quick and easy installation/configuration

		The first time you run the system you answer a few
		simple questions (nodename, network info, system
		passwords), and the system is then ready to use.

	Virtual screens

		There can be 10 login sessions, selected by the function
		keys, and each one can open additional screens for
		graphics display.  A windowing system such as X can
		optionally be run in any or all of these sessions.
		Unlike some IBM-PC Unix systems, these virtual screens
		are not special text-only terminals that can't be used
		when graphics or a window system are in use; terminal
		and graphics screens all coexist simultaneously.

	Amiga hardware device drivers with source code

		Support for Amiga floppy drives and serial port, A3000 and
		A2091 SCSI interfaces, A2065 Ethernet, A2232 serial card

	"Public" programs with source code

		GNU Emacs and the GNU C Compiler (GCC)

		elm mail interface

		USENET news software (bnews, rn, nntp, rrn)

		less, shar, sc, send and reply, miscellaneous other
		public domain programs

		games

	Our own custom supplemental documentation set (tutorial, user's
		guide, command reference, and installation guide)

	Capability to share a system and disk with AmigaDOS

		AmigaDOS is included with all A3000UX machines at no
		charge.  At boot time, a menu can be accessed to allow a
		choice of Unix or AmigaDOS.  Either can be made the
		default.

	bru (backup and restore utility)

	Pre-installed configuration

		Amiga UNIX and AmigaDOS are already installed on the
		(large) hard disk.  You plug in the machine, connect
		your monitor, turn it on, and UNIX comes up.  It is
		pre-installed with all of Release 4.  The distribution
		tape also includes optional archives with source code to
		the public domain programs and development utilities for
		X and Open Look.

	High resolution 256 color X server for A2410 TIGA graphics card

		Although this has been demonstrated at lots of shows, I
		don't think the card is available yet, but it should be
		released soon.  The native X that works right out of the
		box is high resolution, but monochrome.  A color version
		will soon follow.



HISTORY
-------

Amiga Unix System V Release 4 and Amiga hardware were demonstrated at
the AT&T/Unix International SVR4 product rollout at Uniforum in
November, 1989.

Amiga Unix SVR4 has been at beta sites, primarily universities and
developers, since the beginning of last summer.  We have approximately
750 units in the field, plus hundreds of users who have been working
with our earlier releases and SVR3.  We plan to upgrade all these users
as part of our major launch, taking place later this month.  We also
have lots of people using Amiga Unix on 2500s, but this is not an
official product.  Also, this is an international product, with beta
sites in at least seven different countries.

Internally, we in the Unix engineering and documentation groups have all
been using Amiga Unix for our development work for at least the past
year.  We compile our programs, the entire Unix system, and the kernel,
using the compiler on our release.  Our machines are the exact same
models you all can buy, with no extras.  (We use the standard
configuration, which has 9 MB RAM, 200 MB hard disk, and Ethernet.)  We
created all our own documentation using Amiga Unix and the X Window
System.  We read news, display GIFs, send mail to and from our homes,
write fractal programs, do Postscript screens and scans and printouts,
write zillions of shell scripts, use xterms and xclocks, collect and
distribute the Amiga Unix Tech Notes, and in general function as if we
have several rooms filled with superior graphic workstations.

We don't use these systems because we have to; we use them because
they're the best Release 4 machines we can get, and we need to know how
Release 4 works.  When there is a question about a Release 4 feature, we
check our own machines, not somebody else's.  Someone on the net asked
if this machine is solid.  The answer is simple.  We use it; it's solid.

Amiga Unix and the A3000UX were shown at UniForum '91 in Dallas.  The
show demo included live video teleconferencing under Amiga Unix,
Genlock, and, NewTek's video toaster over a Unix network.

The latest version includes a number of fixes and additions to the
version we've been beta testing for the past few months.  The first
build of A3000UX units with Amiga Unix Version 1.1 has been ordered, as
has the documentation.  (This is our third print run, the first for
Version 1.1, and we've ordered 2000 copies!)



WHAT'S NEXT
-----------

Meanwhile, we're close to finishing Version 2.0, which includes some major
enhancements:

	X11R4 - fast, lean X

	An expanded and user-selectable installation and configuration
	program

	new GCC-compiled kernel and utilities

	improved compatibility with AmigaDOS

	improved tape, floppy, and serial drivers

	MS-DOS 1.44 MB floppy driver

Plus, lots of other neat things, like gdb and native color X, that are
in process but may not make it by 2.0.  Some of us are already using the
alpha 2.0 release, including X11R4, and it's fast.


Although we are all busy working on future versions of Amiga Unix, we
welcome questions and discussion in this newsgroup or email.  We will
reply when we can.

			- Commodore-Amiga Unix Development Group