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From: "Charles H Sauer (he/him)" <sauer@technologists.com>
To: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] First Unix-like OSes not derived from AT&T code?
Date: Tue, 10 May 2022 13:05:43 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <5ebf4284-878f-ab85-6d6f-475add897315@technologists.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2NoVHbRX1rRdbvuUtw4Epdee1NMvg_xaad9QKHRCDNyMw@mail.gmail.com>

I mostly defer to Heinz and Clem regarding PC/IX. It is hard to imagine 
the IBM people in Boca Raton allowing the Chaplin imagery to be used 
with a secondary product like PC/IX, but I don't remember the packaging.

PC/IX was my first hands on experience with Unix. PC/IX was used 
extensively in the AIX development group while ROMP hardware was scarce.

Before I got my own RT/PC, I used PC/IX primarily, until I got a PC/AT 
and started using some instance of Xenix that supported the 286 MMU.

Charlie

On 5/10/2022 12:18 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
> Sorry, I  hit return too soon.
> 
> Mary Ann -  I think  PC/IX is what you were thinking.  FWIW: it was one 
> of the reasons why Andy developed Minix.  He said at the time it was 
> insufficient and if he was going to have a pure V7 port for the base 
> 8088-based PC/XT (not 286s-based PC/AT) then he wanted something he 
> could teach with.   IIRC the early PC/IX (and I know for certain Minux 
> did not) did not even recognize the MMU for the 286 of the AT (much less 
> the later 386), but it did have a driver for the AT disk controller 
> (which was/is a different controller than the XT).
> 
> As Warner says, PC/XT was based on the new System III license we had 
> just all negotiated earlier that winter.   Microsoft had already started 
> shipping Xenix on the x86/68000 and I think a z8000 using the V7 
> license, but I don't think IBM relicensed it.   HP was shipping HP-UX 
> for the original 9000 on the same, and Tek was also shipping it firsts 
> emulator system on the V7 license.    DEC had the original v7m which 
> begat Ultrix, although I don't remember if DEC ever shipped binaries on 
> the original V7 license.  Charlie can correct me, but I don't think IBM 
> ever shipped binaries on the V7 license either.
> 
> [The original V7 redistribution license had terms that makers of $100K+ 
> systems did not mind too much, but was difficult for what would 
> eventually be called PCs and workstations at the <$10K (much less < $1K) 
> price to swallow.
> 
> FWIW: Years later, Linus famously got his 386 box from his parents for 
> Christmas, got a copy of Andy's Minux (for a PC/XT), started writing his 
> terminal program, and was annoyed that it did not use the VM/larger 
> address space of hardware.
> ᐧ
> ᐧ
> 
> On Tue, May 10, 2022 at 12:59 PM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com 
> <mailto:clemc@ccc.com>> wrote:
> 
>     PC/IX
>     ᐧ
> 
>     On Tue, May 10, 2022 at 11:32 AM Mary Ann Horton <mah@mhorton.net
>     <mailto:mah@mhorton.net>> wrote:
> 
>         I recall having an IBM PC port of UNIX in the 1980s on floppy
>         with a black 6x9 box and Charlie Chaplin with the red rose. I
>         thought it was called AIX. I installed it, and recall it being
>         very different from UNIX for sysadmin (different logs, different
>         admin commands) but similar for users. I thought it was based on
>         System III or thereabouts.
> 
>         I can't find any evidence of this. It appears AIX 1.0 wasn't for
>         the original PC.
> 
>         Does anyone else recall this distribution and what it was called
>         or based on?
> 
>         Thanks,
> 
>              Mary Ann
> 
>         On 5/1/22 19:08, Kenneth Goodwin wrote:
>>         My understanding of AIX was that IBM licensed the System V
>>         source code and then proceeded to "make it their own". I had a
>>         days experience with it on a POS cash register fixing a client
>>         issue. The shocker - they changed all the error messages to
>>         error codes with a look at the manual requirement.
>>
>>         Not sure if this is true in its entirety or not.
>>         But that's what I recall, thst it was not a from scratch
>>         rewrite but more along the lines of other vendor UNIX clones
>>         of the time.
>>         License the source, change the name and then beat it to death.
>>
>>         On Sun, May 1, 2022, 2:08 PM ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com
>>         <mailto:rminnich@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>             in terms of rewrites from manuals, while it was not the
>>             first, as I
>>             understand it, AIX was an example of "read the manual,
>>             write the
>>             code."
>>
>>             Unlike Coherent, it had lots of cases of things not done
>>             quite right.
>>             One standout in my mind was mkdir -p, which would return
>>             an error if
>>             the full path existed. oops.
>>
>>             But it was pointed out to me that Condor had all kinds of
>>             code to
>>             handle AIX being different from just about everything else.
>>
>>

-- 
voice: +1.512.784.7526       e-mail: sauer@technologists.com
fax: +1.512.346.5240         Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/
Facebook/Google/Twitter: CharlesHSauer

  reply	other threads:[~2022-05-10 18:07 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 79+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2022-05-01  9:30 Andrew Warkentin
2022-05-01 11:43 ` Ron Natalie
2022-05-01 11:56   ` Rob Pike
2022-05-01 14:03     ` Kenneth Goodwin
2022-05-03  4:37       ` Jim Carpenter
2022-05-01 14:09   ` Kenneth Goodwin
2022-05-01 18:08     ` ron minnich
2022-05-01 18:22       ` Charles H Sauer (he/him)
2022-05-01 19:49         ` Dan Stromberg
2022-05-01 20:37           ` Charles H Sauer (he/him)
2022-05-02  2:08       ` Kenneth Goodwin
2022-05-02  9:21         ` Dr Iain Maoileoin
2022-05-02 20:19           ` Rich Morin
2022-05-02 21:30             ` Clem Cole
2022-05-02 21:36             ` Dan Cross
2022-05-10 15:28         ` Mary Ann Horton
2022-05-10 16:08           ` Warner Losh
2022-05-10 16:40             ` Heinz Lycklama
2022-05-10 16:42             ` James Frew
2022-05-14  2:56             ` Mary Ann Horton
2022-05-10 16:59           ` Clem Cole
2022-05-10 17:18             ` Clem Cole
2022-05-10 18:05               ` Charles H Sauer (he/him) [this message]
2022-05-10 19:27                 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2022-05-10 19:08               ` Henry Bent
2022-05-10 19:33                 ` Richard Salz
2022-05-10 20:18                   ` Ronald Natalie
2022-05-11 16:20                     ` James Frew
2022-05-11 16:51                       ` Paul Winalski
2022-05-10 20:28                   ` Henry Bent
2022-05-10 20:43                   ` Warner Losh
2022-05-10 20:46                   ` Clem Cole
2022-05-11 16:44                     ` Paul Winalski
2022-05-11 17:09                       ` Clem Cole
2022-05-11 17:35                       ` Larry McVoy
2022-05-12  0:16                         ` George Michaelson
2022-05-13  2:46                         ` Adam Thornton
2022-05-15  0:48                           ` Larry McVoy
2022-05-15  5:36                             ` Adam Thornton
2022-05-15 13:37                               ` Larry McVoy
2022-05-12  5:22                       ` Warner Losh
2022-05-12 12:06                         ` Ron Natalie
2022-05-12 12:43                           ` John Cowan
2022-05-15  2:00         ` Stuart Remphrey
2022-05-02  2:42       ` Phil Budne
2022-05-02  6:46         ` Ron Natalie
2022-05-02 13:50           ` Clem Cole
2022-05-02 14:46             ` tytso
2022-05-02 15:38               ` Clem Cole
2022-05-02 20:31                 ` Warner Losh
2022-05-03  5:01                   ` tytso
2022-05-03 11:35                     ` Richard Salz
2022-05-02 23:30           ` Gregg Levine
     [not found]           ` <CAK7dMtD08weh+97mx+ncrq0cxprKgke42C0vFYNPnBkd8Fx9Sg@mail.gmail.com>
2022-05-03  7:28             ` Ronald Natalie
2022-05-02 12:59         ` Kenneth Goodwin
2022-05-02 14:13           ` Richard Salz
2022-05-02 13:14         ` tytso
2022-05-02 13:32           ` Larry McVoy
2022-05-02 13:16         ` Dan Cross
2022-05-02 14:14           ` Miod Vallat
2022-05-02 14:50             ` ron minnich
2022-05-02 16:13             ` Al Kossow
2022-05-02 18:46               ` Miod Vallat
2022-05-02 19:54               ` Chet Ramey
2022-05-02 21:17             ` Dan Cross
2022-05-02 23:49               ` George Michaelson
2022-05-03  7:22                 ` Ronald Natalie
2022-05-03  7:40               ` Miod Vallat
2022-05-03  8:03                 ` Ron Natalie
     [not found]               ` <CAEoi9W4eD8AF=FwjMT-KPRfyYgD+qgVvE1u3sBwiovm4=1WWLg@mail.g mail.com>
2022-05-03 12:14                 ` John Foust via TUHS
2022-05-01 20:55 ` Michael Huff
2022-05-03  4:55   ` Jim Carpenter
2022-05-02 15:43 ` Clem Cole
2022-05-02 16:16   ` Bakul Shah
2022-05-02 16:19     ` Bakul Shah
2022-05-02 17:14       ` Clem Cole
2022-05-02 16:29     ` Larry McVoy
2022-05-02 17:42     ` Clem Cole
2022-05-02 17:59       ` Bakul Shah

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