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* [TUHS] Surprised about Unix System V in the 80's - so sparse!
@ 2021-03-17 20:33 Josh Good
  2021-03-17 20:57 ` Adam Thornton
                   ` (6 more replies)
  0 siblings, 7 replies; 19+ messages in thread
From: Josh Good @ 2021-03-17 20:33 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

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.

The chapter titles are:

1. Introduction
2. vi: A Text Editor
3. ed
4. mail
5. Communicating with Other Sites
6. bc: A Calculator
7. The Shell
8. The C-Shell
9. Using the Visual Shell

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.

Granted, this Xenix version is derived from System V Release 2, and I think
it was for the Intel 286 (not yet ported to the i386), but hey it's 1988
already and the Internet is supposed to be thriving on UNIX in the Pacific
Coast, or so the lore says. I see now that it probably was only in the
Berkely family that the Internet was going on...

In truth, I fail to see what was the appeal of such a system, for mere
users, when in the same PC you could run rich DOS-based applications like
WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, Ventura Publisher and all the PC software from
those years.

I mean, mail without Internet is pretty useless, althouhg I understand it
could be useful for inter-company communications. And yes, it had vi and the
Bourne Shell. But still, it feels very very limited, this Xenix version,
from a user's point of view.

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.

-- 
Josh Good


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 19+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2021-03-20  0:40 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 19+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
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
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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