[Simh] Fw: Cutler Unix

[Clem Cole]

below..

On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 9:27 PM, <david.d.miller at att.net> wrote:

> In the mid-70s I was working at Sylvania WDL.  We were looking for a
> real-time OS for a PDP 11/45.  Nothing at DEC.  We checked with AT&T for
> UNIX and they wanted $40K (I was told).  Management said, "no way" and I
> was assigned the task.  I wrote a separated I&D-space (full memory) OS for
> our application, which incidentally was written in Pascal. But that's
> another story.
>
> David.
>


If it was mid-70's (i.e. 6th or 7th edition) the commercial license was
$20K for the first CPU and $7K for the second and $5 for each additional
CPU.  $100 was the educational license fee and was to defray the cost of
writing a tape - but AT&T had to make the IP available as part of the
consent decree.  IIRC: Even the $100 could be waved it you brought a couple
of RK05s to MH and Ken or Dennis copies the disk.  i.e. that how some of
the universities got  the bits originally as students brought them back
with them.

The fees for basic UNIX did not go up to $40k for the first CPU until post
System III - it may have been as late as System V.  But by then there were
all sort of other fees, such as the $150K redistribution license fee which
was on top of the first CPU.

Looking back on it, one of the few times I was ever in a room with Willy G
was during the negotiations @ Ricki's Hyatt in Palo Alto that would cause
AT&T to create the System III license and the first redistribution license.
  All the majors firms in the room had no problem with $1.5K per CPU when
the cost of a VAX or HP3000 was $250K-$500K or more for IBM.   The firms
developing what were later be called "personal workstations" envisioned a
$10K-$20K price point and were willing to settle for about $500 a copy.
Gates wants to pay $25 for what would be the Xenix license for a PC/AT
which then cost about $3.5K-5K retail, but he promised Al Arms that he
would sell "millions."    I remember him turning to the room and saying
(whining actually) - "You guys don't get it.  The only thing that matters
in the software business is volume."

Sad truth - he was right.

Clem
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