Re: The COHERENT Operating System

In article <uu546b$otu$2@reader1.panix.com>,
Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:

In article <uu2ob8$3bcot$2@dont-email.me>, Rich  <rich@example.invalid> wrote:

Ben Collver <bencollver@tilde.pink> wrote:

On 2024-03-28, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Mon, 25 Mar 2024 12:23:58 -0000 (UTC), John McCue wrote:
>

... but the Linux juggernaut got too much for MWC :(

>
I wonder how you could call a rag-tag bunch of volunteers a
“juggernaut” ...

 
One could argue that Linux ate commercial *nix's lunch. 

>
Linux (free of cost) plus the rather rapid performance increases of the
Intel x86 arch over those years were what ate commerical Unix's lunch. 
When one could buy a commodity x86 system for a couple grand, which had
more compute performance than a five or six figure unix workstation,
and get 'Unix' (Linux) on the x86 for free, the commerical unix
workstation vendors no longer had a market they could sell into.
>
One, without the other, would not have had the same devastating effect
on the unix workstation market.

>
I remember vividly back in the mid-late 90's a sysadmin I knew
showing me a COTS PC running Linux; nothing I hadn't seen before
but he made an offhand comment that blew me away: "Yeah, it's
about half the speed of a SPARCstation-whatever, but a quarter
of the cost."
>
That's when I knew Linux on x86 had won.
>
- Dan C.

I think XFree86 was the final piece of the puzzle. Anyone using
graphical workstations wouldn't want to give up that environment.
Having X11 on x86 gave the same workstation experience at that
much cheaper price point.