Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 20:49:56 +0800 From: Peter Wemm <peter@netplex.com.au> To: Doug MacKintosh <doug@doug.net> Cc: grog@lemis.com (Greg Lehey), freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft Source (fwd) Message-ID: <200011141250.eAECnuL07140@mobile.wemm.org> In-Reply-To: <200011121935.MAA26831@gw.doug.net>
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Doug MacKintosh wrote: > > > and Microsoft was actually running a large chunk of their language > > > engineering on Xenix on Sun machines, as late as 1988 (I got a call > > > from a Microsoft employee wanting to buy a copy of our > > > communications software for Xenix running on Sun hardware; when I > > > said "What?!?", he said "Oh, that's right, it's an internal product > > > only". Originally, Xenix only ran on 68000 hardware. > > > > Do you have any evidence for this? Admittedly, there was 68000 > > hardware at the time, but it was very early, and there's no obvious > > reason why Microsoft (which was definitely in charge of XENIX) would > > have bothered to port to an architecture they didn't plan to use, > > especially since it was big-endian and 32 bit, whereas both the PDP-11 > > and i86 were little-endian and 16 bit. I'd suspect that you're > > extrapolating here. > > Gents, > > My first Unix machines, which I purchased very-well-used in 1987 or > so, were two M68000 (10MHz) contraptions manufactured by a company > called Spectrix. They ran Microsoft Xenix (v3.2? v2.3? - I forget). The > machines, I believe, were manufactured in 1981 or thereabouts. Spectrix > called them model 30s. They used the Intel Multibus and had a couple > dozen serial ports, 2MB of RAM, two 29MB SASI drives and a QIC tape. > > I heard a rumour that these boxen were actually Sun 0's or some such thing. Dont forget the Tandy/Radio Shack Model 16. It was a 68000 based Xenix box with a Z80 "IO coprocessor". It was commercially produced and marketed. You could have three terminals, and (wait for it) 8 inch floppys (with three external drives) and even a 5 or 10MB *hard disk*... :-) I actually threw out my catalog that had photos and details from about the 1983-84 era. Cheers, -Peter -- Peter Wemm - peter@FreeBSD.org; peter@yahoo-inc.com; peter@netplex.com.au "All of this is for nothing if we don't go to the stars" - JMS/B5 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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