[Info-vax] XENIX VAX / PDP

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 9/30/19 8:48 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> =?UTF-8?Q?Arne_Vajh=c3=b8j?=  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 9/29/2019 9:08 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>> On 9/29/19 3:19 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Not really.  I know there were a few other attempts to port v7 to toy
>>>> computers but none of them were as successful as Xenix.  Hell, you could
>>>> buy a computer running Xenix at Radio Shack of all places.  "You've got
>>>> questions, we've got blank stares."
>>>
>>> I don't think Xenix was derived from v7 as much as from SYS-III.
>>
>> It would require a look at the code to see what is actually were.
>>
>> But it was sold as being based on Version 7.
>>
>> The Wikipedia article has a link to Computerworld 1981 with the
>> text "The ... Xenix operating system, an enhanced version of Western
>> Electric's Unix Version 7 developed under its license by Microsoft Inc.,
>> is ...".
> 
> I don't know about later versions of Xenix, but the earlier versions that
> I saw on systems like the Altos did not have named pipes or uname.  I
> would consider those two things to be the major differences between v7
> and the 16-bit version of System III.  There were a lot of changes in
> process scheduling too but I don't know what happened where on that.
> 
> Maybe later versions of Xenix implemented these features.  I would not be
> surprised.  SCO was very active in development for a while before they
> let the lawyers take over.  So I would not be surprised if they implemented
> a lot of System IIIisms later in their life.
> --scott
> 


I had (and worked professionally) with Tandy 16's and 6000's.
Their version of Xenix was definitely more SYS-III than v7.
At least as far as the programming interface went.

bill