XDE Reborn

For what it's worth, I could have been a famous zillionaire by now. That is because I was the network admin for what once was one of the largest LANs in the world, back in 1986. It was the Xerox ESXC16 domain and it consisted of over 150 D-Machines. I cannot remember the exact details, but it was one of the top domains in Xerox outside of PARC, OSBU-South, OSBU-North and Rochester128. We had over 900MB of file service, both a PUP Gateway and a full set of XNS servers and services including about 11 print servers, a Clearinghouse and a couple of mail servers. We had one of the first fiber optic ethernet hubs on the planet. It was the bomb.

Over the weekend, I happened on to some interesting documents on and off the web. It has gotten me really jazzed about some Xerox nostalgia. Just this morning, I hit the mother lode. It turns out that some cat named Don Woodward has created a virtual D-Machine for Win32. On my very desktop, right now, is a copy of Dawn and a Tajo 15.3 environment. Is this mind-blowing or what?

Every year I go through a period of depression thinking about what might have been had Xerox been successful in marketing and selling the networks, operating systems, workstations and printers that they developed. And then thinking about it today, I wonder how little it might have meant considering the death of computing kings like NCR, DEC and Silicon Graphics, not to mention Apollo, Cray, and Symbolics. Still, a small but a mighty big word is 'if'. Then I wake up and realize that there were people there at Xerox who said that there was no future in email - that business people would never trust it and managers would never learn to type.

Comments

[DandyDon “Xerox6085”]

I too wonder what might have happened if Xerox had somehow been better at marketing The Star Workstation. I own a Iphone 5s. It does a lot, but no where near what was being done in View Point/Global View at Xerox.

I was a Xerox 860 user. Newly trained in 1989 on a 6085 Model 1 running VP 2.2. I was sent to a few potential office assignments in and around XC1 and XC2, El Segundo.

Nothing potentially tripped my trigger so to speak until I was assigned to the 15th floor of XC1 USMG on El Segundo Blvd, substituting for a regular temp.

I was supporting roughly 12 Managers/VPs who all had 6085s. There were also a couple 8010s. There was nothing I wouldn't try, any document or drawing project which was given to me. A manager I was putting drawing a flow chart for looked over my shoulder and exclaimed "WOW!". I'd never experienced that before.

One of the managers could not understand why she had one page of text yet when printed there were two blank pages which followed. I showed her how to turn on "show all" carrier returns and non-print spaces, which then displayed all carrier returns and why there appeared to be blank pages in the document.

Someone from the 16th floor of USMG XC1 came down and asked my name, she said "I've been hearing great things about you". Unfortunately though when another position opened on the floor it was given to a relative of the regular temp.

I was then in the software testing lab El Segundo Documentor Systems Business Unit (DSBU) to take over the software testing position for the then called Pacifica project aka ChemIlluistrator, which was designed to draw chemical compounds in a desktop publishing environment. The project was 8 month late. It still was not ready for Squibb Inc. Too many problems with stability as I recall.

The project went back for redevelopment, and I was again on the outside looking in. Then came the huge layoffs at Xerox late in 1989 and everything changed. There were no more openings for contract labor for a very long time. I went on to other things.

Now USMG XC1 and XC2 are fond memories as they are both gone. Within the last year two thirds of 701 South Aviation has now also become vacated and up for lease.

I own a 6085 model 1, and many pieces of software, documentation and some hacks which were given to me during the time when all of the workstations were sold to EDS and Xerox was moving towards Windows 3.11 (what a joke).

I also have downloaded the Dawn emulator. I had hoped that I might be able to port some of the VP toys I have to it but haven't the time or resources to figure it out.

So that's my story.

[Cobb]

I'm sure we know some of the same people, namely Dave Bradley who took my spot as we moved the server room from XC1 to XC2 and I went in another direction.

[MonarkeIV]

For some reason Google+ never forwarded your reply. When I stumbled upon this again I tried to sign in with Google+ but for some reason it was not handed off to Typepad correctly and I received an error.

I moved around XC1 and XC2 while trying the temp agency I worked for tried to find the right place to fit me long term.

I suppose today thing might have been the same and I'd be somewhere else. I certainly do not like what Xerox has become.

Now that Ursula Burns has split the company into two, who knows what will happen. Maybe the name Xerox will die with those of us who remembered it's name and technology.

Don Resor
Los Angeles