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Yes NeXT/Apple survive, although they commodity m68k CPUs, not quite your traditional UNIX minicomputer. Those were IBM, Sun, HP, DEC, maybe SGI. Designed their
by stinkbeetle 2mo ago
Yes NeXT/Apple survive, although they commodity m68k CPUs, not quite your traditional UNIX minicomputer. Those were IBM, Sun, HP, DEC, maybe SGI. Designed their own ISAs, CPUs, interconnect fabric, 3 of them did their own silicon manufacturing.
One does still survive though, that's IBM's POWER / AIX. Still actively developed, though there is the feeling of 'when' rather than 'if' for them too.
- pjmlp 2mo agoI did not count AIX / Solaris in, because they are always some racks in a server room, or the whole IBM / Unisys / Fujitsu for that matter. I was only thinking about UNIX workstations, those under/besides the desk. Otherwise you're right, there are few more options available still.
- stinkbeetle 2mo agoNot true, they all did workstations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARCstation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARCstation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RS/6000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RS/6000 https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/1fz29tx/rs6000_laptop_saved_from_the_scrap_heap/ https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/1fz29tx/r... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_IRIS#MIPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_IRIS#MIPS https://www.openpa.net/systems/hp-9000_720_730_750.html https://www.openpa.net/systems/hp-9000_720_730_750.html Apple (or NeXT) were never vertically integrated back then. In the last 6 years with Apple making their own CPUs for OSX you could call them a vertically integrated UNIX shop. Not minicomputer though, which is from my post you replied to. Apple was not a vertically integrated vendor that survived bottom-up attack, they attacked Intel from bottom up via mobile/smartphone cores in a similar way Intel did to the minicomputers.