For once following a step or two behind rival National Advanced Systems, which has already signed for implementation of Sun Microsystems’ SunOS Unix on its IBM-compatible mainframes, Amdahl Corp, the pioneer of mainframe Unix, this week announced that it had become the first mainframe manufacturer to join Sun Microsystems’ Strategic Industry Partnership Programme and that it is committed to using the merged operating system currently under development by AT&T and Sun as the basis for future releases of its UTS implementation of Unix. Amdahl also announced that it is working with Sun to link Sun workstations to Amdahl mainframes and as a first step will integrate Sun’s Network File System with UTS: at the Uniforum show, the machines are being demonstrated over serial lines but the plan is to use Ethernet and eventually full channel attachment. Separately, Amdahl and AT&T announced switching and interface products to enable expanding networks to link fairly cheaply to Amdahl mainframes under Unix, via the Amdahl-Fujitsu 4635 IBM 37X5-alike front end.
