From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sat, 23 Jun 2001 19:33:46 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sat, 23 Jun 2001 19:33:37 -0400 Received: from 216-60-128-137.ati.utexas.edu ([216.60.128.137]:49555 "HELO tsunami.webofficenow.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id ; Sat, 23 Jun 2001 19:33:24 -0400 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Rob Landley Reply-To: landley@webofficenow.com To: "Mike Jagdis" , "Alan Chandler" , Subject: Re: Microsoft and Xenix. Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2001 13:11:33 -0400 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.2] In-Reply-To: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <01062313113305.00696@localhost.localdomain> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Saturday 23 June 2001 13:57, Mike Jagdis wrote: > > I hope the following adds a more direct perspective on this, as I > > was a user at the time. > > I was _almost_ at university :-). However I do have a first edition > of the IBM Xenix Software Development Guide from december 1984. It has > '84 IBM copyright and '83 MS copyright. The SCO stuff I have goes back > to '83 - MS copyrights on it go back to '81 but that's probably just > the compiler and DOS compatibility. Ooh! Ooh! I don't suppose I could borrow that? (Hmm... Driving to london isn't quite something my car's up to. For one thing, there's no gas stations in the middle of the atlantic.) The copyright dates back to when they shipped it. I believe Microsoft's license with AT&T was signed in 1979 and actual work started in 1980, but that's in a different notebook... > Basically Xenix was the first MS/IBM attempt at a "real OS" for the > PC. MS realised that multiuser/multitasking was less important than > colour graphics for PC owners and decided to pull out of the Xenix > business. IBM licensed it under their name to keep their desktop computer > concept alive while the Xenix team emerged from the shake out to form SCO. Don't make the mistake of treating IBM -OR- Microsoft as a monolithic entity. IBM had a dozen departments constantly at war with each other: Unix had its pockets of supporters at IBM, some of whom did AIX. At Microsoft, Paul Allen was the bix Unix fan. Gates was indifferent to it, and was far more interested in the Xerox Parc perspective. Both Bell Labs and Xerox Parc totally revolutionized computing. Bell Labs worked from the inside out, how the machine works and what programmers can get it to do. Multitasking, hierarchical filesystem, block and character device drivers, streams, pipes, etc. Xerox Parc worked from the outside in, how the user interacts with the computer and what they experience. Wysiwyg printing, Windows and Icons and Mice in a GUI. (Xerox also did object oriented programming, and networking which was related to both the user and system level. Then again Unix spun out of porting a flight simulator to the PDP 7. It's not QUITE that black and white...) In any case, gates was on the Xerox side and Allen was on the BTL side. When Allen left microsoft, Xenix followed soon after. (First SCO was "helping", then over the next few years the whole thing was gradually dumped on them and the umbilical severed.) Remember, Xenix hadn't made much of a splash in the PC world before 1984 because the PC simply didn't have the power to run it. YOU try doing anything useful with Unix in -LESS- than 512k of ram. That doesn't mean it wasn't having a big impact behind the scenes at Microsoft. (Similarly, windowing interfaces were Jobs's passion for 4 or 5 years before the macintosh launch, whether or not Apple's revenues or customers even knew about it.) Rob