From: George Michaelson <ggm@algebras.org>
To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] XENIX or UNIX? (was: Surprised about Unix System V in the 80's - so sparse!)
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2021 11:21:26 +1000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAKr6gn1-siyrzwRrtLA=3k1aF0u6htJcMGtEOTcuxSqPuM+mfg@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20210318011528.GA53947@eureka.lemis.com>
System V and Xenix both came out of System III and it had X25
networks, JANET. Albeit indirectly, via something like an RT-11
frontend. System III had real limittions on the compiler. It was a
nightmare using code which came from systems which had larger address
space, a larger "heap" for CPP #defines (ok heap maybe isn't the word,
but you know what I mean) -even down to split I/D stuff, it was just
nasty.
I think Xenix was a bit of a half-way bet. They didn't invest. No
reason it couldn't have become something bigger, HP-UX did. Shame, I
think that should have died at birth.
On Thu, Mar 18, 2021 at 11:16 AM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com> wrote:
>
> On Wednesday, 17 March 2021 at 21:33:37 +0100, Josh Good wrote:
> > Hello UNIX veterans.
> >
> > So I stumbled online upon a copy of the book "SCO Xenix System V Operating
> > System User's Guide", from 1988, advertised as having 395 pages, and the
> > asked for price was 2.50 EUROs. I bought it, expecting --well, I don't know
> > exactly what I was expecting, something quaint and interesting, I suppose.
> >
> > I've received the book, and it is not a treasure trobe, to say the least. I
> > am in fact surprised at how sparse was UNIX System V of this age, almost
> > spartan.
>
> I'm surprised that nobody else mentioned this, but XENIX System V and
> UNIX System V were two very different beasts. I've used both, and
> XENIX is considerably worse.
>
> > And that's it. The communications part only deals the Micnet (a
> > serial-port based local networking scheme), and UUCP. No mention at
> > all of the words "Internet" or "TCP/IP", no even in the Index.
>
> It was available, and I had it installed. In fact, somewhere I still
> have the media, though it's unlikely that they're still readable. But
> like Interactive UNIX System V/386 (if I have the names, it was
> commercially oriented and sold each individual component separately,
> separate media, separate documentation, and these bloody license keys.
>
> > I'm probably spoiled from Linux having repositories full of packaged
> > free software, where the user just has to worry about "which is the
> > best of": email program, text editor, browser, image manipulation
> > program, video player, etc. I understand this now pretty well, how
> > spoiled are we these days.
>
> Yes, I had BSD/386 at the same time I actually had to use XENIX, and
> the difference was like night and day. I moved as much of my
> development environment to BSD as possible, not helped by XENIX's lack
> of NFS. I'm not sure it even had X.
>
> Greg
> --
> Sent from my desktop computer.
> Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key.
> See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
> This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program
> reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2021-03-18 1:22 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 19+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-03-17 20:33 [TUHS] Surprised about Unix System V in the 80's - so sparse! Josh Good
2021-03-17 20:57 ` Adam Thornton
2021-03-17 21:04 ` Al Kossow
2021-03-17 21:38 ` Larry McVoy
2021-03-17 21:08 ` Jim Capp
2021-03-17 21:26 ` Larry McVoy
2021-03-17 21:29 ` Henry Bent
2021-03-17 21:40 ` Larry McVoy
2021-03-17 21:42 ` Henry Bent
2021-03-18 5:10 ` Wesley Parish
2021-03-18 1:15 ` [TUHS] XENIX or UNIX? (was: Surprised about Unix System V in the 80's - so sparse!) Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2021-03-18 1:21 ` George Michaelson [this message]
2021-03-20 0:12 ` Tony Finch
2021-03-18 23:05 ` [TUHS] Surprised about Unix System V in the 80's - so sparse! Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM)
2021-03-19 1:45 ` Richard Salz
2021-03-19 2:01 ` Larry McVoy
2021-03-19 2:06 ` Chris Torek
2021-03-19 2:59 ` Earl Baugh
2021-03-19 17:27 ` Chris Torek
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