Long before Linus Torvalds wrote Linux, Microsoft was the king of Unix world. The company, somehow, developed Xenix, the most popular version of Unix of its time. However, IBM’s decision to go ahead with MS-DOS in its PCs acted as a death blow to Xenix and Microsoft lost interest in the OS.
The article’s light on details and content, but I figured it’d be an interesting excuse to ask if any of you ever used Xenix in any serious fashion. So, did any of you?
I used xenix for a robotic workcell in 1984. It was the first use of a unix system for me and was reasonably well documented so I could complete the project. I also used Xenix for a follow on project.
I went on to use SunOS for future projects but was happy with the results I got from using Xenix though MS didn’t seem to support Xenix past the time I used it as I remember.
Yes I developed Medical programs in C with Xenix OS. This was around 1984.
Phil
Accounting and backend packages were run on Xenix at Options Marknand in the city. Xenix seemed solid and powerful. That was in the 90s.
Edited 2016-10-08 06:16 UTC
In the 90s I worked at UK airport where we had a CEM card access system across the site which was run by Xenix on a Bull Micral. It was a pretty good system in its day, they’re still in business today. Xenix seemed to be pretty solid, we never had any problems with it.
Our department was the test site for a new database system (DataFlex!) in the late 80s running SCO Xenix. I taught myself ed, then vi, shell scripting on the weekends from the manuals. We used vt220 dumb terminals, hand-soldered serial cables, Stallion multiport serial cards and 132 column line printers. Moved cities to become a support tech and later a programmer. We had about 100 sites across the country, but this was before TCP/IP, so they were connected with UUCP and dialup modems. Later, in the mid 90s upgraded to SCO UNIX and HP UX.
Similar beginnings for me, and we still use UUCP today. On Linux servers over IP, but the same basic setup as “back in the day”. Why mess with something that just works, especially when you’d be hard pressed to find modern technology that works any better.
Also, similar beginnings for me. It was around 1988-89, we used RM/COBOL-85 to develop some business applications for local customers, then in 90s we switched to SCO UNIX and AcuCOBOL-85. We used Televideo 925 serial terminals with also hand-soldered serial cables on Intelliport multiserial cards.
The ‘servers’ were just an IBM AT 286 at 8Mhz with 1MB of RAM, but with up to 5 concurrent users! I still conserve a pair of these IBM AT
We also used UUCP to make remote backup copies using dialup modems.
Incredible times compared with what we have today.
Edited 2016-10-09 13:25 UTC
During my student times i and a few friends of mine wrote a building control system for a network of remote units, sensors and actors, controlling heating, electricity, doing trendlogs, alarams, lights, everything to control and account major buildings, like Banks or Insurances. That startet in 1985. XENIX on an IBM AT. Later SCO XENIX, then SCO UNIX, SCO OpenDesktop and finally Novell UnixWare. In Germany. We bought Hard and Software from Computerland which back then had some offices in Germany. XENIX worked really well for this application.
That was also my first time getting money for doing crazy stuff on computers! Great times.
Paul Allen was the biggest defender of Unix in Microsoft and wanted to migrate DOS users to Xenix. I wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t left the company.
Unix being favored over DOS is the what if of the last century isn’t it?
Win95 powered by Xenix. 8) People would have written articles about how to de-nerf it to unleash it’s Unix potential and create a server class system.
As it stands, combining Apple and Red Hat would probably get the closest to what a modern Unix based MS would have looked like.
I played around with DOSBox a few years ago, but I quickly realized that a Unix-like OS is what I really wanted. Adding everything I wanted – multi-threading, multi-user, and filesystem permissions – would essentially turn DOS into a BSD like operating system.
I’d just like to point out that is a terrible article. It’s barely more than “Microsoft had Xenix and then sold it SCO” and they call Zilog “Zilong”.
That’s not even the worst part:
Even though it came first, Unix was probably more powerful than MS-DOS.
(bolding mine)
“Even though it came first, Unix was probably more powerful than MS-DOS.”
That’s the dumbest thing I’ve read since SCO claimed that IBM violated its Unix license.
Edited 2016-10-09 02:54 UTC
There are some other pretty funny parts, too:
“Unix even incorporated the elements of BSD and became the most widely installed base of any Unix variant.”
I used Xenix on an Altos 386, with Informix ISQL during the 80’s. I miss that/
Between 1988 and 1990, I used Xenix running on a Compaq 386sx machine with 16MB RAM and 40MB hard drive to control downlink satellite receivers.
The software to control the receivers was written by a software partner, and I never had developer tools, but wrote some ugly, but impressive shell scripts to take data from IBM AS/400 machines that segmented the receivers into groups for targeted analog video delivery and remote VCR control.
Before I started the job, I took a week long SCO Xenix system administrators class. Coming from the Apple, IBM, and Mac crowd, it was a game changer for me.
Fond memories for sure… and it blows me away to think the “embedded” system I work on now has so many more resources available.
Edited 2016-10-10 00:58 UTC
When I worked for the National Park Service, we had a bunch of old Xenix disks. Apparently, Xenix is still used for some marine research devices, although we didn’t actively use them at the park I worked at anymore.
In the mid 80s I was working as a draughtsman for GEC-Marconi Avionics (later bought by BAE). They realised there was a shortage of software engineers in the industry & created a Real-time Software Conversion Course in conjunction with Bromley College of Technology, to re-train people from other disciplines into the avionics software field. I was one of the first ones on that course. We learned various S/W design methodologies, Pascal programming & a bit of assembler (8080, I think). The Pascal programming was done on a tiny microcomputer (I forget what it was), running xenix. I remember it was so pathetic the whole class couldn’t even run ‘vi’ at once without it grinding to a halt.
That was my first exposure to Unix & was where I caught my life-long love of shell-scripting from. I got stuck doing maintenance work on a large engine-test S/W suite in Fortran & 68000 assembler for a while, got bored & shifted into SysAdmin work, did a lot of DCL scripting on VAX/VMS, then later picked up with Unix again (SunOS/Solaris). I’ve stayed primarily with Solaris ever since. Although it’s a dead-end field to be working in now, I reckon there are enough old stick-in-the-mud companies out there to keep me going for a while yet. Maybe even until I retire.
Edited 2016-10-10 14:18 UTC
A little King of a littler Hill.