[ih] BBN C-series computers

[johnl at iecc.com (John Levine)]

In article <CA5F73E9-DD4E-4A68-8477-8296669EA955 at gmail.com> you write:
>> 2. BBN started the BBN Computer Corporation to be a computer company
>> with the MBB as the base of its systems.  One market was as a
>> replacement computer to run the 316 IMP code in BBN's (separate) network
>> business.

It is my recollection that the C30 was a microcoded reimplementation of
the 516.  The IMP code was so dense that it was easier to reimplement
the hardware than the software.

>The C/70 was, as Bernie Cosell noted in his email, a big improvement over running Unix on the DEC PDP 11/70.  Unfortunately, DEC came out with the VAX shortly
>after the C/70 was completed which reduced the market opportunity for the C/70 significantly.

I ran into someone I think at a Usenix meeting who groused that
porting existing Unix code to the C70 was difficult because everyone
unreasonably assumed that bytes were 8 bits.

While it was certainly nice that the C70 let you run bigger individual
programs than the -11, it was about a decade too late for a computer
that didn't have eight bit bytes.

R's,
John