AT&T Computer Systems
Encyclopedia
AT&T Computer Systems is the generic name for American Telephone & Telegraph
's unsuccessful attempt to compete in the computer business. In return for divesting the local Bell Operating Companies (Baby Bells
), AT&T was allowed to have an unregulated division to sell computer hardware and software.
Prior to the divestiture of the Bell System
on January 1, 1984, the Bell Labs
Processor Division had developed the 3B20D ("D" for Duplex); the commercial simplex version 3B20S, which competed with the DEC
VAX
for internal Bell System usage; the world's first 32-bit microprocessor
, the BELLMAC 32A; and, using this microprocessor, the 3B5 and 3B15 computers for billing and telecom switching control applications.
was required to put its computer business into a fully separated subsidiary called AT&T Information Systems
(ATTIS, without the ampersand or hyphen). Software was developed in New Jersey locations (Murray Hill, Summit, Holmdel, and Piscataway), and software, hardware, and system solutions were developed in Naperville
and Lisle
, IL. After a couple years of court hearings, AT&T was allowed to pull the business back into the mainstream corporate organization, and it was renamed AT&T Data Systems Group, consisting of 3 divisions: Computer, Terminals (the Teletype Corporation
of Skokie, IL), and Printers. In 1991, the AT&T Data Systems Group, with the three divisions was announced to the public. In 1992 the Terminals division (Teletype Corporation) was sold to Memorex
-Telex, and the Printer division, which had only bought OEM equipment from Genicom, was phased out. By the mid-1990s, this left only AT&T Computer Systems.
AT&T Computer Systems (abbreviated AT&T-CS) was the home of the UNIX System V
operating system
, originally developed in the Bell Labs Research Division. The important System V Interface Definition
(SVID) was written, attempting to standardize the various flavors of Unix, and define the official interfaces which made up a UNIX operating system. In 1988, AT&T announced its intent to buy up to a 20% stake in Sun Microsystems
, a company then most well known for making high-end UNIX workstations.Upset at their academic-minded supplier (Bell Labs) now turned competitor (AT&T-CS), the "Gang of Seven" founded the Open Software Foundation
(OSF), each contributing source code from their UNIX
SVR3 versions. AT&T founded the UNIX International
organization as a counter-response to the OSF. But by the late 1980s, AT&T had almost given up, sold most of its stake in Sun Microsystems
, spun the UNIX business off as Unix System Laboratories
(which was later bought by Novell
), canceled its WE 32000 (aka BELLMAC) and CRISP
(C Reduced Instruction Set Processor) microprocessor product lines, and just concentrated on networked server computer systems. See also Unix wars
.
Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, AT&T-CS produced many "firsts" in the computer world, besides the UNIX operating system itself. The 3B5 (1981)[1978?] and 3B15 (1982)[1979] were the first computers to be designed with the 32-bit WE 32000 microprocessor, and the 3B15 was the first computer to run a demand-paging
version of Unix. There was a project, codenamed "Alice", to develop the 3B5 into an asymmetric multiprocessor with 3 CPUs, but this was canceled in favor of the demand paging 3B15 project, and a few of the "Alice" participants left the company and went to Sequent Computer Systems
.
The 3B5, 3B15, and 3B20S and 3B20D were aimed at the former AT&T subsidiaries the RBOCs. However, starting with the ATT-IS days, development of a commercial version of this hardware commenced. The product line was started in 1982, with the introduction of the UNIX PC (aka the 3B1), based on a Motorola 68010 processor. This product was not a success, in part due to the high margin on the machines, AT&T sold the machine for $8,000 although their cost was approximately $4,000.
The next product was the 3B2 product line. It ranged from a 3B2/200 (desktop
) unit, to a 3B2/1000, (data center sized), these machines were sold with System V Release 2, and later System V Release 3. The 3B2 was the reference platform for SVR3.
Because the 3B5/3B15 was a large minicomputer with only 1 CPU, it was sometimes referred to as "the body without a brain". Also the small 3B2 had a desktop form factor with (supposedly) less expansion capability, but had capacity available for up to 4 CPUs, it was thus also at times referred to as "the brain without a body".
The "Companion" was developed, the first "laptop" computer to have a 32-bit CPU and UNIX. The "Alexander" system measured about 14 inches on each side square, and about 5 inches high, featured a unique stacking I/O bus for up to 8 cards, featured compressed Unix filesystems on pluggable ROM cartridges like modern gaming consoles, and used the WE 32100 microprocessor running UNIX SVR3. Both were so outrageous and ahead of their time, they were never marketed.
(SBC) circuit panels, and featured the first SVR4 distributed UNIX kernel (codenamed "Apache", nothing to do with the open source project started in the 1990s). Although the SBCs did not share address space, the UNIX kernel was distributed across all SBCs in a single virtual image.
The StarServer E ("Enterprise" or SSE) was an Intel-based symmetric multiprocessor
(SMP), introduced just after the Sequent system, making the SSE the world's second SMP UNIX system, and the first to run System V.4. It featured 4 Intel i486 CPUs. A later design (codenamed "Bigfoot") was to feature 10 Pentium CPUs, but this was never released because of the NCR
deal.
AT&T-CS also introduced the world's first "PC&C" (personal computer and communication), the famous AT&T Safari laptop, the first to have a built-in modem and networking. This system used an Intel x86 microprocessor, and ran Microsoft
software instead of Unix. AT&T-CS also marketed a line of desktop PCs, first using Olivetti
as an OEM, later designing its own product line (codename Cascade) using OEM mainboards from Intel.
Other innovative designs which were never released included the "Starburst", a distributed Unix kernel message-passing multiprocessor with a fiber-optic switching core, and "Intercept", a unique High-Availability multiprocessor.
AT&T-CS also bought OEM systems from Tandem Computers
and Pyramid Technology
. The Tandem Integrity S2 was renamed the StarServer FT and sold only internally to other AT&T divisions. The Pyramid "System 7000" was a large symmetric multiprocessor, containing 12 CPUs, and saw its first large-scale application at the AT&T Universal Cards credit-card billing center, the first enterprise-scale replacement of mainframes by a UNIX server within AT&T. Both these systems used the MIPS
R-series RISC microprocessors. After the WE 32000 microprocessors were canceled, the 3B2 follow-on (codenamed "Phoenix") was also to use a MIPS CPU. The entire MIPS-based product line was to be renamed the System 9000, and to feature "scalavailability" - from normal commercial availability (NCA) choices, to fault-tolerant (FT), to high performance SMP.
The System 9000 strategy was canceled when AT&T's Board of Directors decided to close down AT&T Computer Systems, and buy the NCR Corporation
, announced in 1991, and implemented January 1, 1992. NCR management tried to cancel all further development of AT&T-CS systems, though some refused to die for a few years, and backlash from AT&T Network Systems (later to be spun off as Lucent Technologies
) precipitated a purge of NCR upper management by the AT&T Board. NCR had just developed and suddenly canceled its Motorola
88000
-based systems, and then started the NCR 3000 series, developed using Intel x86 microprocessor
s. The AT&T StarServer E could still beat the comparably equipped NCR 3450 by 11% in the TPC
Benchmark B test, and some of the SSE's 7 patented innovations were then adapted and retrofitted into the NCR 3000 design.
NCR was renamed AT&T Global Information Solutions (AT&T-GIS) in 1994, and some of the top NCR management was purged. The Naperville, IL operation provided LifeKeeper Fault Resilient System software (a failover high-availability software cluster product), the Distributed lock manager
for Oracle
Parallel Server, and the Vistium computer-telephony integrated (CTI) on-line hardware-assisted networked meeting product. Only about 400 employees remained in the Naperville location by the beginning of 1995. In the mid-1980s, there had been something like 30,000 employess associated with AT&T-CS, including marketing, customer support, factories, and development.
In 1994 a high powered team from AT&T Naperville transferred to NCR San Diego in the midst of developing a MicroChannel based four channel SCSI adapter based on a custom ASIC. This host bus adapter went on to great success in NCR and served as a connection point for over a billion dollars worth of peripherals attached to NCR minicomputers and database servers.
On September 20, 1995, Bob Allen, American Telephone & Telegraph
Chairman of the Board and CEO, announced the "trivestiture" - the 3-way split of American Telephone & Telegraph
into the new service-oriented American Telephone & Telegraph
, a newly independent NCR, and the new telecom equipment business which would later be named Lucent Technologies
. On December 15, the former AT&T-CS operations were shut down, signaling the end of AT&T's involvement in designing computer systems. 3 AT&T-CS employees went into the new NCR, 25 stayed with AT&T, and the rest (about 200) went to Lucent. Many former AT&T Computer Systems employees have been employed by Schaumburg, IL based Motorola.
American Telephone & Telegraph
AT&T Corp., originally American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American telecommunications company that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies. AT&T is the oldest telecommunications company...
's unsuccessful attempt to compete in the computer business. In return for divesting the local Bell Operating Companies (Baby Bells
Regional Bell Operating Company
The Regional Bell Operating Companies are the result of United States v. AT&T, the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust suit against the former American Telephone & Telegraph Company . On January 8, 1982, AT&T Corp. settled the suit and agreed to divest its local exchange service operating...
), AT&T was allowed to have an unregulated division to sell computer hardware and software.
Prior to the divestiture of the Bell System
Bell System
The Bell System was the American Bell Telephone Company and then, subsequently, AT&T led system which provided telephone services to much of the United States and Canada from 1877 to 1984, at various times as a monopoly. In 1984, the company was broken up into separate companies, by a U.S...
on January 1, 1984, the Bell Labs
Bell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...
Processor Division had developed the 3B20D ("D" for Duplex); the commercial simplex version 3B20S, which competed with the DEC
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
VAX
VAX
VAX was an instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the mid-1970s. A 32-bit complex instruction set computer ISA, it was designed to extend or replace DEC's various Programmed Data Processor ISAs...
for internal Bell System usage; the world's first 32-bit microprocessor
Microprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
, the BELLMAC 32A; and, using this microprocessor, the 3B5 and 3B15 computers for billing and telecom switching control applications.
Divestiture
After divestiture, January 1, 1984, American Telephone & TelegraphAmerican Telephone & Telegraph
AT&T Corp., originally American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American telecommunications company that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies. AT&T is the oldest telecommunications company...
was required to put its computer business into a fully separated subsidiary called AT&T Information Systems
AT&T Information Systems
AT&T Information Systems was the fully separate subsidiary of AT&T which focused on computer technology ventures and telephone sales, and other unregulated business...
(ATTIS, without the ampersand or hyphen). Software was developed in New Jersey locations (Murray Hill, Summit, Holmdel, and Piscataway), and software, hardware, and system solutions were developed in Naperville
Naperville, Illinois
Naperville is a city in DuPage and Will Counties in Illinois in the United States, voted the second best place to live in the United States by Money Magazine in 2006. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 141,853. It is the fifth largest city in the state, behind Chicago,...
and Lisle
Lisle, Illinois
Lisle is a village in DuPage County, Illinois, United States. The population was 22,930 at the 2011 census, and estimated to be 23,135 as of 2008. It is part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Illinois Technology and Research Corridor...
, IL. After a couple years of court hearings, AT&T was allowed to pull the business back into the mainstream corporate organization, and it was renamed AT&T Data Systems Group, consisting of 3 divisions: Computer, Terminals (the Teletype Corporation
Teletype Corporation
The Teletype Corporation, a part of American Telephone and Telegraph Company's Western Electric manufacturing arm since 1930, came into being in 1928 when the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Company changed its name to the name of its trademark equipment...
of Skokie, IL), and Printers. In 1991, the AT&T Data Systems Group, with the three divisions was announced to the public. In 1992 the Terminals division (Teletype Corporation) was sold to Memorex
Memorex
Memorex began as a computer tape producer and expanded to become a major IBM plug compatible peripheral supplier. It is now a consumer electronics brand of Imation specializing in disk recordable media for CD and DVD drives, flash memory, computer accessories and other electronics.Established in...
-Telex, and the Printer division, which had only bought OEM equipment from Genicom, was phased out. By the mid-1990s, this left only AT&T Computer Systems.
AT&T Computer Systems (abbreviated AT&T-CS) was the home of the UNIX System V
UNIX System V
Unix System V, commonly abbreviated SysV , is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by American Telephone & Telegraph and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, termed Releases 1, 2, 3 and 4...
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
, originally developed in the Bell Labs Research Division. The important System V Interface Definition
System V Interface Definition
The System V Interface Definition is a standard that describes the AT&T UNIX System V behavior, including that of system calls, C libraries, available programs and devices...
(SVID) was written, attempting to standardize the various flavors of Unix, and define the official interfaces which made up a UNIX operating system. In 1988, AT&T announced its intent to buy up to a 20% stake in Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
, a company then most well known for making high-end UNIX workstations.Upset at their academic-minded supplier (Bell Labs) now turned competitor (AT&T-CS), the "Gang of Seven" founded the Open Software Foundation
Open Software Foundation
The Open Software Foundation was a not-for-profit organization founded in 1988 under the U.S. National Cooperative Research Act of 1984 to create an open standard for an implementation of the UNIX operating system.-History:...
(OSF), each contributing source code from their UNIX
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
SVR3 versions. AT&T founded the UNIX International
Unix International
Unix International or UI was an association created in 1988 to promote open standards, especially the Unix operating system. Its most notable members were AT&T and Sun Microsystems, and in fact the commonly accepted reason for its existence was as a counterbalance to the Open Software Foundation ,...
organization as a counter-response to the OSF. But by the late 1980s, AT&T had almost given up, sold most of its stake in Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
, spun the UNIX business off as Unix System Laboratories
Unix System Laboratories
Unix System Laboratories was originally organized as part of Bell Labs in 1989. USL joined with the UNIX Software Operation, also a Bell Laboratories division, in 1990. It assumed responsibility for Unix development and licensing activities...
(which was later bought by Novell
Novell
Novell, Inc. is a multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...
), canceled its WE 32000 (aka BELLMAC) and CRISP
AT&T Hobbit
The Hobbit is a microprocessor design of the early 1990s from AT&T. It developed from the company's CRISP design that was in turn developed from the C Machine experimental efforts in the late 1980s at Bell Labs. C Machine, CRISP and Hobbit were optimized for running the C programming language...
(C Reduced Instruction Set Processor) microprocessor product lines, and just concentrated on networked server computer systems. See also Unix wars
Unix wars
The Unix wars were the struggles between vendors of the Unix computer operating system in the late 1980s and early 1990s to set the standard for Unix thenceforth.- Origins :...
.
Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, AT&T-CS produced many "firsts" in the computer world, besides the UNIX operating system itself. The 3B5 (1981)[1978?] and 3B15 (1982)[1979] were the first computers to be designed with the 32-bit WE 32000 microprocessor, and the 3B15 was the first computer to run a demand-paging
Demand paging
In computer operating systems, demand paging is an application of virtual memory. In a system that uses demand paging, the operating system copies a disk page into physical memory only if an attempt is made to access it...
version of Unix. There was a project, codenamed "Alice", to develop the 3B5 into an asymmetric multiprocessor with 3 CPUs, but this was canceled in favor of the demand paging 3B15 project, and a few of the "Alice" participants left the company and went to Sequent Computer Systems
Sequent Computer Systems
Sequent Computer Systems, or Sequent, was a computer company that designed and manufactured multiprocessing computer systems. They were among the pioneers in high-performance symmetric multiprocessing open systems, innovating in both hardware and software Sequent Computer Systems, or Sequent, was...
.
The 3B5, 3B15, and 3B20S and 3B20D were aimed at the former AT&T subsidiaries the RBOCs. However, starting with the ATT-IS days, development of a commercial version of this hardware commenced. The product line was started in 1982, with the introduction of the UNIX PC (aka the 3B1), based on a Motorola 68010 processor. This product was not a success, in part due to the high margin on the machines, AT&T sold the machine for $8,000 although their cost was approximately $4,000.
The next product was the 3B2 product line. It ranged from a 3B2/200 (desktop
Desktop computer
A desktop computer is a personal computer in a form intended for regular use at a single location, as opposed to a mobile laptop or portable computer. Early desktop computers are designed to lay flat on the desk, while modern towers stand upright...
) unit, to a 3B2/1000, (data center sized), these machines were sold with System V Release 2, and later System V Release 3. The 3B2 was the reference platform for SVR3.
Desktops
The 3B2 was the first desktop supermicrocomputer (1983) with a 32-bit microprocessor and UNIX. The model 300 and 400 series were uniprocessors. The 3B2 became the official "porting base" for UNIX System V Release 3. Later versions were the first to introduce UNIX asymmetric multiprocessing (3B2/600 Falcon) and nearly symmetrical multiprocessing (3B2/1000 Galactica). The Falcon won the highly touted US Air Force Office Automation contract, initially estimated at $1.7 billion, and the largest single computer contract the Federal government had awarded at that time. It was also the first supermicrocomputer to use a first-level cache memory based on virtual addresses instead of physical addresses, which made it 80% faster than the original requirements called for.Because the 3B5/3B15 was a large minicomputer with only 1 CPU, it was sometimes referred to as "the body without a brain". Also the small 3B2 had a desktop form factor with (supposedly) less expansion capability, but had capacity available for up to 4 CPUs, it was thus also at times referred to as "the brain without a body".
The "Companion" was developed, the first "laptop" computer to have a 32-bit CPU and UNIX. The "Alexander" system measured about 14 inches on each side square, and about 5 inches high, featured a unique stacking I/O bus for up to 8 cards, featured compressed Unix filesystems on pluggable ROM cartridges like modern gaming consoles, and used the WE 32100 microprocessor running UNIX SVR3. Both were so outrageous and ahead of their time, they were never marketed.
Servers
On the large side, the 3B4000 (1986) was the first "snugly coupled" multiprocessor (the "network in a box"), containing the A-BUS which supported 16 large single-board computerSingle-board computer
A single-board computer is a complete computer built on a single circuit board, with microprocessor, memory, input/output and other features required of a functional computer. Unlike a typical personal computer, an SBC may not include slots into which accessory cards may be plugged...
(SBC) circuit panels, and featured the first SVR4 distributed UNIX kernel (codenamed "Apache", nothing to do with the open source project started in the 1990s). Although the SBCs did not share address space, the UNIX kernel was distributed across all SBCs in a single virtual image.
The StarServer E ("Enterprise" or SSE) was an Intel-based symmetric multiprocessor
Symmetric multiprocessing
In computing, symmetric multiprocessing involves a multiprocessor computer hardware architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single shared main memory and are controlled by a single OS instance. Most common multiprocessor systems today use an SMP architecture...
(SMP), introduced just after the Sequent system, making the SSE the world's second SMP UNIX system, and the first to run System V.4. It featured 4 Intel i486 CPUs. A later design (codenamed "Bigfoot") was to feature 10 Pentium CPUs, but this was never released because of the NCR
NCR Corporation
NCR Corporation is an American technology company specializing in kiosk products for the retail, financial, travel, healthcare, food service, entertainment, gaming and public sector industries. Its main products are self-service kiosks, point-of-sale terminals, automated teller machines, check...
deal.
AT&T-CS also introduced the world's first "PC&C" (personal computer and communication), the famous AT&T Safari laptop, the first to have a built-in modem and networking. This system used an Intel x86 microprocessor, and ran Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
software instead of Unix. AT&T-CS also marketed a line of desktop PCs, first using Olivetti
Olivetti
Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, printers and other business machines.- Founding :The company was founded as a typewriter manufacturer in 1908 in Ivrea, near Turin, by Camillo Olivetti. The firm was mainly developed by his son Adriano Olivetti...
as an OEM, later designing its own product line (codename Cascade) using OEM mainboards from Intel.
Other innovative designs which were never released included the "Starburst", a distributed Unix kernel message-passing multiprocessor with a fiber-optic switching core, and "Intercept", a unique High-Availability multiprocessor.
Partners
Tandem Computers
Tandem Computers, Inc. was the dominant manufacturer of fault-tolerant computer systems for ATM networks, banks, stock exchanges, telephone switching centers, and other similar commercial transaction processing applications requiring maximum uptime and zero data loss. The company was founded in...
and Pyramid Technology
Pyramid Technology
Pyramid Technology Corporation was a computer company that produced a number of RISC-based minicomputers at the upper end of the performance range. They also became the second company to ship a multiprocessor Unix system , in 1985, which formed the basis of their product line into the early 1990s...
. The Tandem Integrity S2 was renamed the StarServer FT and sold only internally to other AT&T divisions. The Pyramid "System 7000" was a large symmetric multiprocessor, containing 12 CPUs, and saw its first large-scale application at the AT&T Universal Cards credit-card billing center, the first enterprise-scale replacement of mainframes by a UNIX server within AT&T. Both these systems used the MIPS
MIPS architecture
MIPS is a reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by MIPS Technologies . The early MIPS architectures were 32-bit, and later versions were 64-bit...
R-series RISC microprocessors. After the WE 32000 microprocessors were canceled, the 3B2 follow-on (codenamed "Phoenix") was also to use a MIPS CPU. The entire MIPS-based product line was to be renamed the System 9000, and to feature "scalavailability" - from normal commercial availability (NCA) choices, to fault-tolerant (FT), to high performance SMP.
The System 9000 strategy was canceled when AT&T's Board of Directors decided to close down AT&T Computer Systems, and buy the NCR Corporation
NCR Corporation
NCR Corporation is an American technology company specializing in kiosk products for the retail, financial, travel, healthcare, food service, entertainment, gaming and public sector industries. Its main products are self-service kiosks, point-of-sale terminals, automated teller machines, check...
, announced in 1991, and implemented January 1, 1992. NCR management tried to cancel all further development of AT&T-CS systems, though some refused to die for a few years, and backlash from AT&T Network Systems (later to be spun off as Lucent Technologies
Lucent Technologies
Alcatel-Lucent USA, Inc., originally Lucent Technologies, Inc. is a French-owned technology company composed of what was formerly AT&T Technologies, which included Western Electric and Bell Labs...
) precipitated a purge of NCR upper management by the AT&T Board. NCR had just developed and suddenly canceled its Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
88000
88000
The 88000 is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Motorola. The 88000 was Motorola's attempt at a home-grown RISC architecture, started in the 1980s. The 88000 arrived on the market some two years after the competing SPARC and MIPS...
-based systems, and then started the NCR 3000 series, developed using Intel x86 microprocessor
Microprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
s. The AT&T StarServer E could still beat the comparably equipped NCR 3450 by 11% in the TPC
Transaction Processing Performance Council
Transaction Processing Performance Council is a non-profit organization founded in 1988 to define transaction processing and database benchmarks and to disseminate objective, verifiable TPC performance data to the industry...
Benchmark B test, and some of the SSE's 7 patented innovations were then adapted and retrofitted into the NCR 3000 design.
NCR was renamed AT&T Global Information Solutions (AT&T-GIS) in 1994, and some of the top NCR management was purged. The Naperville, IL operation provided LifeKeeper Fault Resilient System software (a failover high-availability software cluster product), the Distributed lock manager
Distributed lock manager
A distributed lock manager provides distributed software applications with a means to synchronize their accesses to shared resources....
for Oracle
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
Parallel Server, and the Vistium computer-telephony integrated (CTI) on-line hardware-assisted networked meeting product. Only about 400 employees remained in the Naperville location by the beginning of 1995. In the mid-1980s, there had been something like 30,000 employess associated with AT&T-CS, including marketing, customer support, factories, and development.
In 1994 a high powered team from AT&T Naperville transferred to NCR San Diego in the midst of developing a MicroChannel based four channel SCSI adapter based on a custom ASIC. This host bus adapter went on to great success in NCR and served as a connection point for over a billion dollars worth of peripherals attached to NCR minicomputers and database servers.
On September 20, 1995, Bob Allen, American Telephone & Telegraph
American Telephone & Telegraph
AT&T Corp., originally American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American telecommunications company that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies. AT&T is the oldest telecommunications company...
Chairman of the Board and CEO, announced the "trivestiture" - the 3-way split of American Telephone & Telegraph
American Telephone & Telegraph
AT&T Corp., originally American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American telecommunications company that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies. AT&T is the oldest telecommunications company...
into the new service-oriented American Telephone & Telegraph
American Telephone & Telegraph
AT&T Corp., originally American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American telecommunications company that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies. AT&T is the oldest telecommunications company...
, a newly independent NCR, and the new telecom equipment business which would later be named Lucent Technologies
Lucent Technologies
Alcatel-Lucent USA, Inc., originally Lucent Technologies, Inc. is a French-owned technology company composed of what was formerly AT&T Technologies, which included Western Electric and Bell Labs...
. On December 15, the former AT&T-CS operations were shut down, signaling the end of AT&T's involvement in designing computer systems. 3 AT&T-CS employees went into the new NCR, 25 stayed with AT&T, and the rest (about 200) went to Lucent. Many former AT&T Computer Systems employees have been employed by Schaumburg, IL based Motorola.
See also
- 3B Computers3B ComputersThe 3B series computers were a line of micro-programmable minicomputers produced by AT&T Computer Systems's Western Electric subsidiary.-High-availability processors:The original series of 3B computers include the models 3B20C, 3B20D, 3B21D, and 3B21E....
- DMERT operating system
- J. O. Becker, The 3B20D PROCESSOR and DMERT Operating System (The Bell System Technical JournalBell System Technical JournalThe Bell System Technical Journal was the in-house scientific journal of Bell Labs that was published from 1922 to 1983.- Notable papers :...
, January 1983, Vol. 62, No. 1, Part 1)