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From: zrm@mit-eddie.UUCP (Zigurd R. Mednieks)
Newsgroups: net.arch,net.followup,net.micro
Subject: Re: AT&T vs. the toolkit approach
Message-ID: <2175@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Jun-84 10:09:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.2175
Posted: Mon Jun 18 10:09:36 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 20-Jun-84 00:31:22 EDT
References: <283@stcvax.UUCP> <861@tekchips.UUCP> <511@islenet.UUCP>
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 23

AT&T if, in fact, botching their entry into the market with the
unbundled approach to software. 3rd party software vendors won't want to
deal with umpteen software configuartions that may or may not be
orthogonal to the hardware configuarations. If my precompiler relies on
sed being there, I don't want to have to hassle my customer about a
program he may not have heard of or be interested in finding out about.
Also, being closed mouthed about the hardware is a serious mistake of
even larger proportions.

AT&T, it seems, is cruising for a bigger bruising than the HP9000,
another fantasic piece of hardware that has been kept under wraps by
corporate Vogons. Compare the secretive approach of AT&T to DEC's
approach with the PDP11 and IBM's with the PC. Both those machines are
extremely well documented and have become classics in their domain.
Serious software people WANT to know what's on the inside and will place
machines with secret insides at the bottom of their priorities no matter
how many two page spreads they see in Bussiness Week.

If AT&T falls on its face, I wonder if IBM will realize that the follow
on to the PC had better be as well documented as the original PC.
Probably not.

-Zig