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Laboratory Instruments (2, 212)
1950's (mid)
- TX-0 at Lincoln Labs (Whirlwind) (2,127)
- later TX-2
1962 LINC by DEC (2,212)
- for biomedical research
- not a big success
1973: Xerox
Alto [Archive]
- designed as the workstation for Xerox's office of the
future
- Butler Lampson's 1972 "Why
Alto" Memo
- some architecture borrowed from Lincoln Labs TX-2
- sufficient power to drive a sophisticated screen and I/O
- mouse
- windows
- bit-mapped display (manipulate screen elements by setting memory
bits)
- ethernet available
- ethernet access to laser printers
- cost about $18,000 to build
- was never sold to the public
- many view Alto as the first PC, but it's too expensive
1976 Jun: Wang Labs announces Wang Word Processing System for $30,000
- commercial success
1977 Oct: DEC announces VAX 11/780
- Virtual Address eXtension [of the] PDP-11
- 32 rather than 16 bit address space
- VMS operating system
- 2**32 bit address space
- 1 MIP machine
- Could execute the PDP-11 instruction set
- Sold 100,000 machines over 10 years at $120,000 and up
- Could compete with mainframes for scientific computing
1980's Workstations
- enough power to challenge VAX and mainframes
- microprocessor, often the Motorola 68000
- UNIX
- networking (more efficient than time-sharing)
- $30-40K price range
- eventually on RISC architecture
1981 Summer: Xerox 8010 Star Information System
- commercial Alto
- marketed as an executive workstation
- commercial failure
1981: Apollo of Chelmsford, MA
- Motorola 68000
- proprietary OS and networking
- $40,000
- sells about 1000 systems by mid 1980's
- 1989 acquired by HP
Unix
1982 SUN Microsystems
founded by Vinod Khosla
- Andy Bechtolsheim brings "Stanford University Networked" workstation
- Bechtolsheim student of Forest
Baskett
- May 1982: SUN-1
- Jun 1982: Bill Joy brings Berkeley Unix from UC Berkeley
- SUN-2 follows soon thereafter, about $20,000
- Adopts an "open" system strategy
UNIX
Motorola 68000
Standardized Ethernet
Internal bus that other were free to adopt
- venture capital provided Just Another WorkStation (e.g., Symbolics)
- SUN's open, general purpose machines with good price/performance
prevailed
- competitors Apollo, HP, Silicon Graphics
Mainframes and minis vs. Networks of workstations
DEC's VAX family plus ethernet
- similar to IBM's 360 family idea
- MicroVax to 9000 (mainframe)
- single OS, VMS
- DEC never was enthusiastic about UNIX
- discontinued PDP-10
- tried three incompatible PC's, all failed
- DEC is on the verge of overtaking IBM
- Oct 1987: stock market crash
- Stock takes a heavy hit
- Yields to UNIX, IBM PC, and RISC
RISC Architecture
Notes
1. Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray. Computer: A History of the Information Machine (Basic Books, 1996).
2. Paul E. Ceruzzi. A History of Modern Computing (MIT Press, 2000).
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