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Origins of Xenix? (Was: Pre-1983 Unix-alikes?)

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Jorn Barger

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Nov 10, 2002, 10:26:16 AM11/10/02
to
[adding c.u.x.m to the xpost]

Here's what I've got so far, trying to pin down the origins of
Xenix. It fails utterly to tell a consistent story, so any tips
will be appreciated:

1979 or 1980: Microsoft 'begs' Western Digital for a high-volume
commercial license (binary license refused, source license bought)
http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeches/industry&tech/uexpo.asp

1979? Microsoft may have bought HCR's PDP-11 port?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=29920&cid=3213453

1980: Feb: MS starts development of 8086 Xenix?
http://www.ttu.ee/it/vorgutarkvara/wai2030/elcomphist/comp1977.htm

1980: 25Aug: MS pre-announces Xenix for 8086, Z8000, 68000, PDP-11

1981: Jan: 1st Xenix release co-developed by MS and HCR?
http://www.computerwoche.de/heftarchiv/1985/19850322/a69030.html

1981: winter: MS claims Xenix will be ported to TI9900, IBM Series/1,
and Point 4 Data Corp systems [Byte Feb81]

1981: MS's Bob Greenberg ports PDP-11 v7 (from HCR or AT&T?) to
Codata Z8000
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=36170E22.4E78850B%40trilithon.com
http://www.trilithon.com/pagesprimary/formerclients.html

1981: Feb: TriData announces SST will run MS Xenix on Z8001 [Byte Feb81]

1981: Jun: Byte magazine article on Xenix by Bob Greenberg

1981: Xenix-11 on PDP-11?
http://www.ee.ic.ac.uk/docs/software/unix/begin/appendix/history.html

1981: Oct: MS *expects* to deliver 8086 Xenix first, then Z8000, no
68000 until April 1982 due to hardware problems w/68000 development
platform: http://rlab.cs.nyu.edu/ultra/reports/proton/01
[This article seems the most credible to me.]

1981: 08Dec: MS and SCO sign letter of intent for SCO to be 2nd-source
of Xenix: http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/pups/1997-October/000020.html

1981??? Xenix 2.0 by MS/SCO? [not very credible]
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=64%40elgar.UUCP&rnum=4

1982: Jun: Xenix 2.2 v7 for 68000?
http://groups.google.com/groups?th=4716e2c816a7a6e1

1982: Aug: Altos claims to be shipping Xenix for 8086
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=bnews.altos86.106&rnum=89

1982: 15Sep: MS brochure claims Xenix is shipping
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1993Feb5.212317.3816%40bilver.uucp

1982: Oct? MS trying to sell Xenix to Tandy for Model 16 (68000)
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=GMrt5J.y23%40nemesis.lonestar.org

1982: date on Tandy's Xenix Development System
http://home.iae.nl/users/pb0aia/cm/m2gazlst.html

1983: Tandy ports MS Xenix 2.3 (from Apple Lisa?) to Model 16, calling
it TRS-Xenix 1.0
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1989Jun14.133152.4347%40eci386.uucp
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1991May21.035251.1986%40devon.lns.pa.us

ten releases to fix bugs in 1983
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=GMrt5J.y23%40nemesis.lonestar.org

1983: Feb: Xenix-86 and -286 mentioned on netnews
http://groups.google.com/groups?th=da83c12bea5dfc9f
http://groups.google.com/groups?th=a3126bddd32d5f47&rnum=9

1983: May: Apple Lisa will run 68000 MS Xenix?
http://groups.google.com/groups?th=ef90d7aa64415f69&rnum=61

1983: Jun: Unix Review doesn't include Xenix in pc-Unixes article!?
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1228%40ecsvax.UUCP&rnum=1

1983: summer: SCO Xenix-86 released?
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=FMKBFA.14G1%40nemesis.lonestar.org

1983: autumn: MS turns over 68k Xenix development to SCO
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=GMrt5J.y23%40nemesis.lonestar.org

1984: IBM AT causes MS to resume interest in Xenix-286
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=GMrt5J.y23%40nemesis.lonestar.org

So can anyone suggest a series of release-dates for the various
early Xenixes (8086, 68k, Z8000, 286, PDP11, etc) that makes
sense of all this?

Sarr J. Blumson

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Nov 10, 2002, 3:37:09 PM11/10/02
to
In article <16e613ec.02111...@posting.google.com>,

Jorn Barger <jo...@enteract.com> wrote:
>[adding c.u.x.m to the xpost]
>
>1981: winter: MS claims Xenix will be ported to TI9900, IBM Series/1,
>and Point 4 Data Corp systems [Byte Feb81]

A Series/1 port was actually done around this time by a now dead company
called COSI (unrelated to the sandwich shops). I paper on this appeared
in Communications of the ACM some time in the early 80s. Stolarchuk was
one of the authors.

--
--------
Sarr Blumson sa...@umich.edu
voice: +1 734 998 9932 home: +1 734 665 9591
JSTOR, University of Michigan http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sarr/

mo

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Nov 10, 2002, 10:30:08 PM11/10/02
to
I would suggest posting this question to comp.sys.tandy wherin lurks a very
experienced person on the subject known as 'Frank Durda IV' either that or
check the Google groups archive as I'm sure I've seen him post a history of
xenix to that group before.
Mo

"Jorn Barger" <jo...@enteract.com> wrote in message
news:16e613ec.02111...@posting.google.com...

Jorn Barger

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Nov 11, 2002, 9:57:19 AM11/11/02
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"mo" <mo...@atariland.com> wrote in message news:<4vFz9.327024$121.9...@twister.austin.rr.com>...

> I would suggest posting this question to comp.sys.tandy wherin lurks a very
> experienced person on the subject known as 'Frank Durda IV' either that or
> check the Google groups archive as I'm sure I've seen him post a history of
> xenix to that group before.

I did some (more) searching thru the Google archives under his name,
and found a pretty convincing claim that the first MS Xenix release
was late 1982, presumably for 8086, followed in 1983 by the Tandy
Xenix for 68000.

He thinks c1981 MS only had two programmers assigned to Xenix ports.
(If one of them was Bob Greenberg, he left MS in '81, which would
have set things back even more.)

Sarr J. Blumson

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Nov 12, 2002, 10:15:04 AM11/12/02
to
In article <16e613ec.02111...@posting.google.com>,
Jorn Barger <jo...@enteract.com> wrote:
>
>I did some (more) searching thru the Google archives under his name,
>and found a pretty convincing claim that the first MS Xenix release
>was late 1982, presumably for 8086, followed in 1983 by the Tandy
>Xenix for 68000.

A PPOE had an Altos 8086 machine running Xenix is late winter or early spring
of 1982. It may have been a prototype, though.

Bill/Carolyn Pechter

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Nov 12, 2002, 5:30:54 PM11/12/02
to
In article <16e613ec.02111...@posting.google.com>,
Jorn Barger <jo...@enteract.com> wrote:
>
>1979 or 1980: Microsoft 'begs' Western Digital for a high-volume
>commercial license (binary license refused, source license bought)
>http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeches/industry&tech/uexpo.asp
>


Sorry for one little correction...

IIRC that was supposed to be Western Electric (WECO -- the manufacturing
arm of AT&T -- later a part of Lucent) not Western Digital the
manufacturer of the LSI-11 chipset and a large number of IDE drives
and chipsets.

Bill
--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Bill and/or Carolyn Pechter | pec...@shell.monmouth.com |
| Bill Gates is a Persian cat and a monocle away from being a villain in |
| a James Bond movie -- Dennis Miller |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Eric Smith

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Nov 12, 2002, 7:10:46 PM11/12/02
to
jo...@enteract.com (Jorn Barger) writes:
> Here's what I've got so far, trying to pin down the origins of
> Xenix. It fails utterly to tell a consistent story, so any tips
> will be appreciated:
>
> 1979 or 1980: Microsoft 'begs' Western Digital for a high-volume
> commercial license (binary license refused, source license bought)

Begging Western Digital for a Unix license had absolutely ZERO chance
of accomplishing anything useful. I very much doubt that Microsoft
ever did that.

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