esdi and unix (sorta was Re: 1542 and att unix)

[Paul De Bra]

In article <30675 at hydra.gatech.EDU> gt3408a at prism.gatech.EDU (DYKES,DAVID PRESTON) writes:
>	The thread about att's unix running on third party hardware
>raises a question for me that maybe one of ya'll can answer.  Does this imply
>that att unix would not work on on an esdi configuration...
>	Does any one have att sysv r4 running on an esdi system?

This is a confusion that keeps coming up regularly.
AT&T Unix sVr3.1, 3.2 and 4.0 are only *supported* on AT&T hardware,
and not even on all AT&T hardware. (4.0 for instance does not yet support
the older intelligent AT&T ethernet controller)

This support has nothing to do with what hardware AT&T Unix runs on.
If you are willing to pay full price for AT&T Unix without getting the
(included) support, you can go with non AT&T hardware.
A number of things may not work, or nothing may work, or everything may
work just fine, but you're on your own (even if you work for AT&T,
as I did when i tried calling support...).

In particular, AT&T Unix (including 4.0) happens to run on most generic
AT386 boxes. ESDI is no problem. Some SCSI controllers may be a problem
and the strings for the supported disks and tapes are hardwired in the kernel
somewhere (so i heard, i have never tried SCSI).

Most of the problems are in the video and mouse arena.
AT&T only supports the AT&T (aka Logitech) mouse, and will not work with
other mice. Genius and Microsoft are among the mice reported not to work.
VGA boards also cause problems. (only supported since 3.2 version 2.1)
Only the AT&T VDC-600 can be used at higher than standard vga resolution.
(it does 800x600 at 16 colors) That is if you want to use standard system
calls to switch between graphics modes. I believe that up to now the
AT&T VDC-900 is still not yet supported? The VDC-600 is pretty much a
Paradise +16 board, and a small patch to the kernel (1 or 2 bytes)
is sufficient to make the Paradise board work at 800x600, but again,
without a patch, i.e. out of the box, it doesn't work.

I have tried an ET-4000 board, and X386 (thanks to Roell) does work,
but the standard system calls (to put the VDC-600 into 800x600 mode)
has some unwanted side effects (leaves the screen in funny mode when
switching back to text mode).

Another problem area is the tape drive. Only Wangtek and compatibles
(Everex comes to mind) are supported. This basically means that others
will not work. (Archive for instance will not work.)

Concluding: does it work on non AT&T hardware? Maybe yes, maybe not.
            it mostly depends on how compatible your hardware is with AT&T's.
            (some of that isn't hard to do as AT&T is merely a reseller
            for most components)
            will you get support? highly unlikely. (but you cannot choose
            not to pay for the support you don't get)

Paul.
(debra at win.tue.nl)