Post AaV1wmlCd8AbqGE6ls by amoroso@fosstodon.org
 (DIR) More posts by amoroso@fosstodon.org
 (DIR) Post #AaV1qWvkZY430cB3LM by mhd@tilde.zone
       2023-10-06T16:14:39Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       Was there ever a chance that any of the Unix-y workstations could've been a mass market PC contender in the 80s (and early 90s)? I mean, you hear a lot about Ataris, Macs and Amigas being in competition with the IBM PC and its compatibles, and all of them were upwardly mobile in the Unix sector at one time or another.But was there something in the line of Sun 1 or DEC Professional 3xx systems were there were plans of making a newer or cut-down version available to the general public?#retrocomputing #unix
       
 (DIR) Post #AaV1qXaW7yfr33Fbt2 by penguin42@mastodon.org.uk
       2023-10-06T16:55:07Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @mhd The problem was the price; they were way more expensive.  There were clone builds during the late 90's; SPARCstation clones were available a bit cheaper for a few years (don't know actual price)  DEC had thing for running NT on cheaper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Multia  hardware, but didn't initially have people running Unix on it.  They also sold Alpha CPUs on 3rd party motherboards for a few years (I got one and ran Linux on it very nicely).
       
 (DIR) Post #AaV1wmlCd8AbqGE6ls by amoroso@fosstodon.org
       2023-10-06T16:39:24Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @mhd I'm not aware of any such machines by workstation vendors. But some personal computer vendors considered producing low-cost Unix systems like the Commodore 900 that never made it to the market.:https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_900
       
 (DIR) Post #AaV1wngzAIOIjTGFpw by penguin42@mastodon.org.uk
       2023-10-06T16:56:15Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @amoroso @mhd Right, and Acorn did a version of the Archimedes running Unix, the R260 and R140; https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/4475/Acorn-R260/
       
 (DIR) Post #AaV2Mfa1wrtd6OLLge by amoroso@fosstodon.org
       2023-10-06T17:00:54Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @penguin42 Interesting, I didn't know Acorn's take on Unix.
       
 (DIR) Post #AaVE7txhOV0YoR8eZs by mhd@tilde.zone
       2023-10-06T19:12:43Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @penguin42 Yeah, that would've been to late anyways, all the battles were fought by then. The only relevant MIPS Linux system I can remember was that blue router box…But in the early days, IBM PCs were quite expensive and DEC had some $3k machines, never mind the first 68k workstations.I guess DEC failed with its Rainbow and moved away from the market, and Sun just wasn't big enough then.