[ih] What is the origin of the root account?

[Dave Crocker]

On 4/12/2013 12:01 AM, Marty Lyons wrote:
> On Apr 11, 2013, at 7:02 PM, Dave Crocker <dhc2 at dcrocker.net> wrote:
>
>> 3. Within the Arpanet community, DEC hardware running DEC's o/s was
>> close to non-existent, I believe.  Within the early Internet I
>> believe is was quite rare.  DEC didn't offer a TCP/IP stack until
>> somewhere close to 1990.  Before that the stack for VMS came from
>> third-parties, mostly the one I managed for awhile at Wollongong.
>
> Woolongong had the first commercial stack for VMS if I recall.  But
> soon thereafter (I think 1991), TGV had their own version known as
> Multinet, which included more features (I wish I could remember the


Well, ummm, mumble, not quite "soon".  Somewhere in the 5-7 year range.

Dave Kashtan did the core of both products.  He originally did the work 
at SRI in the earlier 80s and Wollongong licensed it, somewhere around 
84/85.  The original Wollongong stack was extremely buggy.  It was fixed 
up just before I got hired.

While I was there, we tried to bring Dave inhouse and signed a contract 
with him for this.  But he simply failed to appear on his scheduled 
first day and, instead, announced he was forming TGV.


> DEC at the time (80/90s) really wanted everyone to run DECNET.  There
> was a lot of politics both internally and selling to customers to
> steer them away from both TCP and Unix.  Ultimately DEC shipped
> Ultrix, which was better than nothing.

It was, finally, DEC offering a Unix license...  And, of course, with 
its spin on the packaging.

But VMS remained the corporate emphasis.  DEC even killed its original 
risc-based product because it couldn't run VMS.  And when it finally 
shipped a work-station that was risc-based (and ran Unix), it was 
intentionally crippled in its packaging, so that the VMS guys would not 
realize that it was the most powerful computer DEC was shipping...

d/

d/

-- 
  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net