Unix for 286 nowadays

[Juan M. Méndez]

I know this question have been done a lot in the past.

Recently, a supposed 8086 box reached my hands, but when I discovered
it was a 286
I remembered it could run an unix clone. The computer in question have
40Mb of hard disk
and 1MB of RAM.

What kind of unix clone, or POSIX compliant OS have had any kind of
development, so I could run
an updated version over it?

The "PC-clone UNIX Software Buyer's Guide"
(http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/clone-unix-guide.txt)
has not been udpated since 1994.

Cheers

[Bob McConnell]

On 20 Oct 2006 04:02:31 -0700, "Juan M. Méndez" <vej...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Some early versions of Minix would run on a 286. I recall having to
undef the constants that enabled the 286 extensions so it would
continue to run on my XT clone with the NEC V20 chip. That was around
1.3 or 1.4. IIRC, 1.2 was the last version that was truly for the
8088. The compiler was recently released as a free download.

I believe Microsoft's Xenix would also run on an IBM AT. That was
about the time they sold it to Santa Cruz.

But I think the rest of the Unix clones required a 386. I remember
running ISC Unix on an Everex 386sx/16 in '90, right after Kodak sold
it to Sun. We had a Digiboard COM/8i and several Wyse terminals on it.
It actually worked pretty well.

Bob McConnell
N2SPP

[Juan M. Méndez]

Bob McConnell ha escrito:

> Some early versions of Minix would run on a 286. I recall having to
> undef the constants that enabled the 286 extensions so it would
> continue to run on my XT clone with the NEC V20 chip. That was around
> 1.3 or 1.4. IIRC, 1.2 was the last version that was truly for the
> 8088. The compiler was recently released as a free download.
>
> I believe Microsoft's Xenix would also run on an IBM AT. That was
> about the time they sold it to Santa Cruz.
>
> But I think the rest of the Unix clones required a 386. I remember
> running ISC Unix on an Everex 386sx/16 in '90, right after Kodak sold
> it to Sun. We had a Digiboard COM/8i and several Wyse terminals on it.
> It actually worked pretty well.
>
> Bob McConnell
> N2SPP

Thanks for the answer, very detailed one. I think I will try Minix,
Xenix or as I read
somewhere Microports.

-- Juan