[TUHS] Xenix

[TUHS] Xenix

[Lorenzo Gatti]

Hello from Italy!

I'm interested in Xenix copyright. Do someone of you know who exactly
owns Xenix? According to Wikipedia, Microsoft gave everything to SCO,
but did they gave also the copyright for the non-x86 versions?

I'm asking this because I'm interested in "saving" Xenix from fading
into the digital night. If everything belongs to SCO, then maybe an
"binary only, non-commercial hobbyst license" could *eventually* be
released, at least for older or non-x86 products

Best regards,

Lorenzo

PS: First mailing list post ever. I'm definitely a newbie, here :)

[TUHS] Xenix

[Jason Stevens]

I doubt SCO/Microsoft will release anything.. but then you never know.
 Do you have Xenix for the PDP-11?  I've seen the lisa & Tandy 68000
floating around, but both used some custom MMU so that cut out
emulators... lol I haven't even bothered asking for source, as I
figured these v6/v7 things are basically lost in the mists of time...
but then there is v6/v7 for the Pdp-11/Interdata 32b & the recent port
of v7 to the i386 http://nordier.com/v7x86/index.html



On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 7:31 AM, Lorenzo Gatti <gattilorenz at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello from Italy!
>
> I'm interested in Xenix copyright. Do someone of you know who exactly
> owns Xenix? According to Wikipedia, Microsoft gave everything to SCO,
> but did they gave also the copyright for the non-x86 versions?
>
> I'm asking this because I'm interested in "saving" Xenix from fading
> into the digital night. If everything belongs to SCO, then maybe an
> "binary only, non-commercial hobbyst license" could *eventually* be
> released, at least for older or non-x86 products
>
> Best regards,
>
> Lorenzo
>
> PS: First mailing list post ever. I'm definitely a newbie, here :)
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>

[TUHS] Xenix

[Jason Stevens]

Yeah that's the extent of it.  trust me I was shocked when I tried to
dd a Xenix install, and Qemu booted it right up.  But without a C
compiler it's useless.  I should add that the TCP/IP supported like 3
NIC's... so even *if* you could find it..... it'd be limited.  You can
get the disk to work though.... But not under Qemu, Virtual PC and
VMWare can use it.

The 'issue' is that simply Xenix's method of detecting disk density
doesn't work under any emulator because while it's trying the wrong
thing it will 'work' when it shouldnt...

if you are trying to load a 3 1/5" high density disk, the device is
2/60
Low density is
2/36

so change the device for fd0 to be either....  or even symlink it.

For what it's worth, running it under Virtual PC is fast, however the
console is kind of screwed up.. Xenix uses a nonstandard screen mode
(well for virtual pc's bios that is).

I used to have Microsoft Word for Xenix... in the box and everything.
I'll be dammed if I know where it is. I wish I had managed to keep the
license cards.... :|

And no, outside of a picture from an ad talking about the PDP-11
version of Xenix, and one anicdote in USENET saying that any issues
they had were traced back to Microsoft additions to the system...
there is no trace of it.

But then who knows, maybe someone will post back with something.

On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 1:08 PM, Lorenzo Gatti <gattilorenz at gmail.com> wrote:
> I know they won't release anything, but asking is never a bad thing.
> I saw the lisa and tandy versions, thank you. What I'm searching is
> the PDP-11 one,
> and I doubt I will find it easily. Do any of you have it?
> BTW, even the x86 version is not working well in emulators.
> Well, at least you cannot install it, but if you have a dd image of a
> working xenix system, this will boot fine in bochs/qemu.
> But you won't be able to use disks (at least images, never tried the
> real disks) to install new software, lol.
> So it's basically a closed system, if you don't connect it to another
> xenix (virtual?) machine via virtual serial port.
>
> 2009/2/10 Jason Stevens <neozeed at gmail.com>:
>> I doubt SCO/Microsoft will release anything.. but then you never know.
>>  Do you have Xenix for the PDP-11?  I've seen the lisa & Tandy 68000
>> floating around, but both used some custom MMU so that cut out
>> emulators... lol I haven't even bothered asking for source, as I
>> figured these v6/v7 things are basically lost in the mists of time...
>> but then there is v6/v7 for the Pdp-11/Interdata 32b & the recent port
>> of v7 to the i386 http://nordier.com/v7x86/index.html
>

[TUHS] Xenix

[Al Kossow]

Jason Stevens wrote:
> I've seen the lisa & Tandy 68000
> floating around, but both used some custom MMU so that cut out
> emulators... lol

You must not have been paying much attention to the development of
Lisa simulation over the past year or two.

[TUHS] Xenix

[Jason Stevens]

No I havent... did they boot it?!!?!!?

On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 1:36 PM, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
> Jason Stevens wrote:
>> I've seen the lisa & Tandy 68000
>> floating around, but both used some custom MMU so that cut out
>> emulators... lol
>
> You must not have been paying much attention to the development of
> Lisa simulation over the past year or two.
>
>
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