Talk:Besta (computer)

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Besta computer has, from what I can find, on a single screen shot: Bestix is a UNIX SYSTEM V 3.1 MC680x0 Ported by Stollman GMBH <- ??? Stallman ???

( screen shot ) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3f/Bestix.jpg/1280px-Bestix.jpg and a picture of the computer:

https://pics.meshok.net/pics/99199594.jpg

Then from the museum of art: it lists the Besta as having a 68030 processor... There is a picture of it having a 68010R10 processor, although blurry, it can be identified as a 68010 in a square package....

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_yEwEOQ_tdfs/SaUD7soiO2I/AAAAAAAAABs/KeGEPCIBOPA/s800/IMG_5758.JPG

Here is a 2nd board, that looks in worse condition, with a oddly rotated CPU.

http://mixeurpc.free.fr/SITE_x86-guide/Photos/Grandes/25/Motorola%20MC68012RC10%20CPGA%20(0A71R)%2001.jpg

Here is a Besta VME CPU board with a 33Mhz MC68030. ( compare with a Macintosh IIxv )

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_yEwEOQ_tdfs/SaUEX_-o9kI/AAAAAAAAACA/NiwHRJxgfb0/s800/IMG_5760.JPG — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.129.161.251 (talk) 22:40, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"In 1988, the first batch of Best-88 workers' Unix stations was launched in our country (NIISI AN SSSR, ZIL - VB Betelin, A.I. Stavitsky). This was the first domestic Unix station. It was built on a Motorola 68020 processor and a VME bus. As M.Moshkov told me, “The Force (Sun-3) computer was the prototype for it. Richard Stallman ported the Unix SVR3.2 operating system for BESTA. In total, about 1,500 stations were released, which were used quite widely - I worked on them , and observed application at Novovoronezh NPP, universities, MGTS, Kazan, Kazakhstan, Tashkent, and many other places (Informix, Oracle, graphic applications, office work on the editor of the Republic of Kazakhstan, etc.). In fact, it was BESTA that paved the way for commercial the use of Unix in the country - this was the first mass low-cost Unix computer in the Union. "

This, although interesting, and plausible, it comes at a time, when GNU was being worked on full swing. It would not be in his personal interest to make this port. Stallman would never have taken the time, a few months out of promoting GNU to sit through something as complex as porting UNIX to a sun clone. The company is listed still in Germany, and is extremely unlikely to have been a base for Stallman to have worked on it.
There are other facts that make this statement false: There are prototypes of this board sporting a MC68010R10, capable of running UNIX, but closer to a Sun-2 and closer to the time to have been 6~9 months behind the west in getting technology running. There are also boards that have MC 68020s, common among commercial VME bus computers at the time. The screen shot presented lists the UNIX software as UNIX SYSTEM V version 3.1, which is distinctly different than Saying SVR3.2. People at the time never referred to it as version rather than Release, certainly with Stallman's clarity of wording of GPL, he would never had make that mistake. The Sun-3 VME based systems were a MC 68030 based system with a 68882 Co-processor, and pictures of the Besta VME boards show either a 68010 or a 68020, ( one each respectively ) or a MC 68030. ( again, being 6~9 months behind, they may have started with a 68010 to remain compatible with Sun-2 systems, and jumped compatibility like Sun did going from a 68010 to a 68020. ( only one Sun-3, with VME slots, features a MC68020. ) The problem of course with a MC68020 is that Sun used a proprietary MMU, which Stallman would have objected to. )

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://www.linuxcenter.ru/lib/history/lh-05.phtml%3Fstyle%3Dprint&prev=search

Seriously? the 1984 time frame for Richard Stallman is preposterous. He was on the road a lot, giving talks like he did after he left MIT to promote GNU. He needed programmers for that, to take on a licensed port of a closed source UNIX?

"In January 1984 I quit my job at MIT and began writing GNU software."

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fsfs/rms-essays.ps — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.254.26.9 (talk) 05:16, 11 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly the article is wrong, the two VME boards that are CPUs do not have 68020s. One has a 68010, and the other has a 68030...142.254.26.9 (talk) 05:32, 11 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]