UNIXPC: 3.5.1.4 worth my time?

Ed Horch ebh at argon.UUCP
Fri Aug 4 14:05:19 AEST 1989


In article <1584 at mtunb.ATT.COM> jcm at mtunb.UUCP (John McMillan) writes:
>There seems to be a little confusion here:
>	3.5 begat 3.5.1.4
>
>	3.51 replaced the above, I don't think 3.5.1.4 would
>		benefit you w.r.t. the packages you mentioned.

I forget the context that originally brought this up, but to clear up
more confusion, if you've got 3.5, upgrading to 3.5.1.4 is trivial.
Howver, if you want to upgrade to 3.51, you have to start from
scratch.  It's not an upgrade, it's a purchase.  That's the bad news.

The worse news is that during the fire sale, which ultimately
determined the 3B1's price range, they never lowered the price of the
software.  Even today, even from the best VARs, the 3.51 foundation
set + the development package will run several hundred dollars.

If you really want 3.51, watch the ads in misc.forsale for a low-end
(like .5x10) 7300.  In some cases, you'll essentially get the 3.51
stuff for less than you could new, with the computer thrown in for
*free*.  Until I can do that, it looks like argon is stuck at 3.5. :-(

BTW, has anyone set up the "Institute for Unix-PC Research" so that
they could get the 3.51 source for the educational price ($3000)? :-)

Hypothetical question:  Suppose someone from the "Institute for
Unix-PC Research" used legally licensed 3B1 OS source, purchased from
AT&T, to hack up the general disk driver to use all the capability of
the Milton board.  How illegal would it be to give away the BINARY of
the new driver?  What about the general case of binary bugfix patches?

-Ed



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