Unix Multiprocessor

I actually think I have this mouse-pad swag somewhere

The
Product

Know officially as SVR4.2MP / UnixWare (See history of Unix System V https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_V) for reference) was the first UnixWare release for multi-processors. It was a large re-write of the kernel especially the virtual memory portion to run on a multiple processor machine

The
Work

I owned everything ‘Human interface related’ portion of Unix, such as the serial terminal and SSH IP connection (This was before graphic based windowing systems). I forgot exactly why, but booting to ‘multi-user mode’ was required for me to get terminal support up. At the time the system only booted to single-user mode…. So I just said ‘go to multi-user mode’…

Well, 100 bugs later involving every single component of the system and many, many kernel crashes… Mostly in other sections of the OS… the system booted (and worked) in multi-user mode.

Once I did this the Bell Lab/Unix System Labs had a ‘go to multi-user mode’ party and I was roundly toasted.

This was a big ‘just get it done’ success at Bell Labs.