out-of-mainstream minis

mark at markesystems.com mark at markesystems.com
Fri Jul 3 18:54:14 CDT 2015


In the late 80’s, I bought from a surplus/junk shop a (by then somewhat obsolete) Unix computer, branded UniSys, I think.  It had 10 serial ports; one was the primary console, one was intended for a printer, and the other 8 were regular user TTYs.  The processor was a 68000 (not 010, 020, or anything else), I don’t remember how much memory, and it had an integral full-height hard drive as well (60 mB, maybe?).

When I say Unix, I mean real System-7 Unix – not Linux or any other *nix.  I thought it was really a pretty neat system – 8 (or 9) users and a printer, just perfect for a small office – or my apartment at the time, which had a terminal or two in every room.  I learned how to program in Unix on that machine, since it matched exactly the System 7 manuals I had. Sadly, time moved on, I got married, and got rid of a bunch of “useless junk”, like that computer.

Recently, I’ve been reminiscing and poking around some on the Web to try to find information about it, but it seems to have vanished completely with nary a ripple.  Has anyone else stumbled across this unit, or at least have any knowledge of it?  It was a black case, about the size of a standard IBM-PC, with ten serial ports on the back and not much else.  I’d sure be interested to know where I might locate data about that unit, or (gasp!) possibly even an existing one...
~~
Mark Moulding


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