Beaverton, Oregon-based Sequent Computer Systems Inc is hedging its bets in the Unix Wars with a plan to add OSF/1 compliance to its Dynix-ptx operating system in versions due for release next year. It also said it would support the Open Software Foundation’s Distributed Computing Environment, and would be evaluating the Distributed Management Environment. With its well-publicised agreements with Unix System Laboratories on the ES/MP symmetrical multi-processing version of System V.4, Sequent’s long-term membership of the rival Software Foundation has mostly been overlooked, although it has always supported OSF/Motif. Compliance with the OSF/1 Application Environment Specification will be achieved by adding a different set of library calls for use with OSF/1 compliant applications, so both V.4 and OSF/1 applications can run concurrently. Pyramid Technology Corp similarly combined AT&T System V and Berkeley 4.2 Unix in the 1980s. The reason, says Sequent’s Scott Winkler, is that we have a large base of customers who have asked us to provide this. Sequent does not plan to offer OSF/1 as the native operating system – It would take a substantial engineering effort to get there, and would not give us the expandability and scalability of Dynix-ptx said Winkler. Sequent continues to work on multiprocessing with Unix Labs. It claims an installed base of over 4,000 systems worldwide.
