IBM AIX for RS/6000 Version 3

Manufacturer	IBM
OS	AIX for RS/6000 Version 3
Product Code	5756-030
Available	1990/06/01 - 1997/01/31
Description	AIX version 3 is a unix-like operating system by IBM for its RS/6000 line of workstations and servers. With features such as a logical volume manager, a journaled filesystem, HA-NFS (high-availability NFS using dual attached SCSI disks), filesystem ACLs, realtime facilities and a preemtable kernel, "modern" package and fix management, an optimizing C compiler (yes, in the base system. These were the times), an audit facility, and last but not least, a menu-driven system administration program ("smit"), it was (IMHO) way ahead of its time. Of course it featured all the common "distinguishing" unix facilities as well, including POSIX, X/OPEN XPG3, AT&T SVID, and 4.3BSD compatibility, virtual memory, TCP/IP, NFS, NIS, X11, and NLS support. It comes at a price, though. AIX is different. System administration outside of smit does not at all feel unix-like, and porting open source software to AIX can be a considerable challenge.
Marketing	AIX Version 3 for RS/6000 is a multi-tasking, demand-paged, virtual memory operating system which can operate as a single-user or multi-user system. It is derived from the AIX/RT Version 2.2.1 Operating System, which has been restructured and enhanced to support and exploit the POWER Architecture of the IBM RS/6000 hardware, and to conform to the IEEE 1003.1-1988 standard for a Portable Operating System for Computer Environments (POSIX). The AIX/RT Operating System Version 2.2.1 kernel and AIX/RT Virtual Resource Manager (VRM) Version 2.2.1 have been merged into a single unified kernel to simplify the support of advanced function and the addition of device drivers, as well as to extend real-time capabilities to the full AIX process management environment. Also included is the optimizing C compiler and a basic set of application development tools. IBM Network File System and Network Computing System support is included to enhance distributed processing capabilities.

IBM RS/6000

IBM RS/6000's (RISC System 6000) are strange beasts (compared to more approachable machines from the same era such as anything made by Sun, Digital, HP, or SGI). But actually they're just different, not hostile.