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Thanks for sharing this. I definitely didn't intend to endorse this view. I think if it was really true that they had purposely misled him and he'd taken it al

Thanks for sharing this. I definitely didn't intend to endorse this view. I think if it was really true that they had purposely misled him and he'd taken it all in then there would be some major technical 'howlers' in the book. As far as I can see there aren't any. Maybe they didn't like the way they were portrayed - which I can understand - and there was a collective, organic 'well of course it wasn't like that' soon after the book was published.

ghaff 2y ago
Yeah, I was product manager for a number of subsequent 32-bit MV minicomputers and, later, a number of Unix-based systems including the big NUMA servers. It's been a while since I read the book but I certainly don't recall anything that caused me to go "That can't be right." No first-hand knowledge of all the internal politics that shook out in the creation of the MV/8000 (Eagle) but, again, never heard anyone say it was BS and I knew many folks both in Westboro and RTP quite well.
- klelatti 2y ago
  Thanks for confirming that. I'd quite like to do a follow-up post on DG. Any really good sources that I could tap into?
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Me probably? Might look at the Data General Alumni facebook page. https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fhp.html https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fhp.html I used to have a few links on pinboard but can't find them. You also might enjoy this: https://archive.org/details/year-in-dev/YearInDev https://archive.org/details/year-in-dev/YearInDev Mostly just some old docs but Wild Hare has served as something of an archive--though mostly pre-MV: https://www.wildharecomputers.com/ https://www.wildharecomputers.com/ Podcast: https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes/season-4/minicomputers https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes/season-4/minic... I was very involved in this episode but my interview (along with Tom West's daughter) got left on the cutting room floor :-)
    - klelatti 2y ago
      Thank you! That's really helpful. I see I wasn't first with new -> old.
      - ghaff 2y ago
        When I was product managing DG's big NUMA servers, The Soul of a NUMA Machine also got thrown around a bit :-) Contact info in my profile.
        klelatti 2y ago
        That's very good. Thanks so much again.

ghaff 2y ago

Yeah, I was product manager for a number of subsequent 32-bit MV minicomputers and, later, a number of Unix-based systems including the big NUMA servers. It's been a while since I read the book but I certainly don't recall anything that caused me to go "That can't be right." No first-hand knowledge of all the internal politics that shook out in the creation of the MV/8000 (Eagle) but, again, never heard anyone say it was BS and I knew many folks both in Westboro and RTP quite well.

klelatti 2y ago
Thanks for confirming that. I'd quite like to do a follow-up post on DG. Any really good sources that I could tap into?
- ghaff 2y ago
  Me probably? Might look at the Data General Alumni facebook page. https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fhp.html https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fhp.html I used to have a few links on pinboard but can't find them. You also might enjoy this: https://archive.org/details/year-in-dev/YearInDev https://archive.org/details/year-in-dev/YearInDev Mostly just some old docs but Wild Hare has served as something of an archive--though mostly pre-MV: https://www.wildharecomputers.com/ https://www.wildharecomputers.com/ Podcast: https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes/season-4/minicomputers https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes/season-4/minic... I was very involved in this episode but my interview (along with Tom West's daughter) got left on the cutting room floor :-)
  - klelatti 2y ago
    Thank you! That's really helpful. I see I wasn't first with new -> old.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      When I was product managing DG's big NUMA servers, The Soul of a NUMA Machine also got thrown around a bit :-) Contact info in my profile.
      - klelatti 2y ago
        That's very good. Thanks so much again.