AT&T Computer Systems - Servers

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 computer (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.

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