6 ms·

> I believe IBM was the very last vendor of real UNIX workstations. How about Apple?

nailer 17y ago
I guess it depends on how you define Unix. While Apple provides both software and hardware, and is a certified Unix (I still haven't met anyone who actually cares about this), there are a lot of older Unix admins who think CDE and X constitutes a Unix workstation, for right or wrong. A pity Sun was so acquisition happy as Apple might have been interested in buying the server part of the company - older versions of OS X had partial ZFS support, and there's still pretty good support for dtrace. Buying the server-only part could have been a good play if Apple decided to re-enter the server market (ask Apple staff about OS X server - the company doesn't want to pursue the server market right now).
- glhaynes 17y ago
  Yeah, the lack of CDE and X (and the addition of Quartz and Aqua) definitely make a Mac feel like a different sort of thing than "a UNIX workstation". Though on the other hand, were I the "Spirit of UNIX", I'd prefer CDE (and to some degree, X) not to be thought of as my defining characteristics... :)
- fragmede 17y ago
  Certification aside, OS X's treatment of X applications as second-class citizens make it sufficiently not-unix-like in my mind. Apple is definitely not pursuing the almost-big-iron server market, but their easy to use sharing features do make it an attractive server choice for some (many?).
jordibunster 17y ago
I agree (I actually commented on the linked site before coming here), Apple became the largest seller of "real" UNIX workstations a while ago. CDE does not UNIX make.
- joshu 17y ago
  oh god, when I saw "CDE" i actually had a flashback. not a pleasant one
rbanffy 17y ago
Apple makes PCs that run Unix. There is a huge difference between a glorified PC and a Unix workstation.
- tesseract 17y ago
  What makes a workstation, anyway? Exotic graphics hardware? (I thought you could get Apple to build you a Mac Pro with a stack of Quadros, although I just checked the Apple Store and that doesn't seem to be an option anymore, so maybe you've got a point there.) A RISC processor? (Good luck with that, these days.) If the Mac Pro is insufficiently workstation-y for you, how about the Cray CX-1 family, which last I checked is still in production?
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    A Mac Pro is just an overgrown PC, much like any Intel server you can get from Dell. It's pretty and classy and, while it runs a real Unix, the whole platform was really designed to run Windows, much like every Intel box has been for a long time. It was a compromise made when Apple switched away from PowerPCs. What made a Unix workstation something unique is that it was built not to run legacy software (I bet the latest Dell can still boot MS-DOS 3.3) but to be the fastest possible machine that given amount of money could buy. That involved, of course, custom graphics hardware, weird disk controllers and exotic buses with hardware-assisted everything. It's a shame most people never experienced this and, for the time being (can you imagine someone building a desktop computer that cannot run Windows?), won't. As for the CX-1, it's a cluster of PCs in a deskside package. Lame. Seymour would never approve it.
    - wmf 17y ago
      Today the fastest possible machine that given amount of money can buy is an x86 PC. The cost of the backwards compatibility crap is more than subsidized by the huge economy of scale. Removing DOS/Windows support would actually cost money and would make no performance difference.
      - 17y ago
wendroid 17y ago
"Macs were only interesting because they were 1) not Intel and 2) not Unix. Now they're both!" - Mark V. Shaney's Dad
hapless 17y ago
Not RISC, not SysV.
hapless 17y ago
Not RISC, not SysV.

I guess it depends on how you define Unix. While Apple provides both software and hardware, and is a certified Unix (I still haven't met anyone who actually cares about this), there are a lot of older Unix admins who think CDE and X constitutes a Unix workstation, for right or wrong. A pity Sun was so acquisition happy as Apple might have been interested in buying the server part of the company - older versions of OS X had partial ZFS support, and there's still pretty good support for dtrace. Buying the server-only part could have been a good play if Apple decided to re-enter the server market (ask Apple staff about OS X server - the company doesn't want to pursue the server market right now).

glhaynes 17y ago
Yeah, the lack of CDE and X (and the addition of Quartz and Aqua) definitely make a Mac feel like a different sort of thing than "a UNIX workstation". Though on the other hand, were I the "Spirit of UNIX", I'd prefer CDE (and to some degree, X) not to be thought of as my defining characteristics... :)
fragmede 17y ago
Certification aside, OS X's treatment of X applications as second-class citizens make it sufficiently not-unix-like in my mind. Apple is definitely not pursuing the almost-big-iron server market, but their easy to use sharing features do make it an attractive server choice for some (many?).

jordibunster 17y ago

I agree (I actually commented on the linked site before coming here), Apple became the largest seller of "real" UNIX workstations a while ago. CDE does not UNIX make.

joshu 17y ago
oh god, when I saw "CDE" i actually had a flashback. not a pleasant one

rbanffy 17y ago

Apple makes PCs that run Unix. There is a huge difference between a glorified PC and a Unix workstation.

tesseract 17y ago
What makes a workstation, anyway? Exotic graphics hardware? (I thought you could get Apple to build you a Mac Pro with a stack of Quadros, although I just checked the Apple Store and that doesn't seem to be an option anymore, so maybe you've got a point there.) A RISC processor? (Good luck with that, these days.) If the Mac Pro is insufficiently workstation-y for you, how about the Cray CX-1 family, which last I checked is still in production?
- rbanffy 17y ago
  A Mac Pro is just an overgrown PC, much like any Intel server you can get from Dell. It's pretty and classy and, while it runs a real Unix, the whole platform was really designed to run Windows, much like every Intel box has been for a long time. It was a compromise made when Apple switched away from PowerPCs. What made a Unix workstation something unique is that it was built not to run legacy software (I bet the latest Dell can still boot MS-DOS 3.3) but to be the fastest possible machine that given amount of money could buy. That involved, of course, custom graphics hardware, weird disk controllers and exotic buses with hardware-assisted everything. It's a shame most people never experienced this and, for the time being (can you imagine someone building a desktop computer that cannot run Windows?), won't. As for the CX-1, it's a cluster of PCs in a deskside package. Lame. Seymour would never approve it.
  - wmf 17y ago
    Today the fastest possible machine that given amount of money can buy is an x86 PC. The cost of the backwards compatibility crap is more than subsidized by the huge economy of scale. Removing DOS/Windows support would actually cost money and would make no performance difference.
    - 17y ago

wendroid 17y ago

"Macs were only interesting because they were 1) not Intel and 2) not Unix. Now they're both!" - Mark V. Shaney's Dad

hapless 17y ago

Not RISC, not SysV.

hapless 17y ago

Not RISC, not SysV.