4 ms·

Indeed, one of the first 386 OSes was Xenix. In retrospect, I really wished that DRI added GEM and native 32-bit application support into Concurrent DOS 386. G

by yuhong 9y ago

Indeed, one of the first 386 OSes was Xenix. In retrospect, I really wished that DRI added GEM and native 32-bit application support into Concurrent DOS 386. GEM would probably be built into the kernel, with virtual 8086 mode used to run legacy 16-bit GEM apps and developers could write new 32-bit GEM (and even command-line) apps. It would be far more interesting than DR-DOS and probably a good competitor to even OS/2 2.0.

osullivj 9y ago
I ported a large Fortran codebase for mech eng analysis to Xenix from VMS back in the late 80s. We needed more than 640K, so DOS wouldn't do, and this was before Windows. I had to write a device driver for the 68000 based graphics card. That was my first real C coding experience. Fun! I didn't know about BSD at the time, but it looks like Xenix was System V [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix
- DrScump 9y ago
  Did you have a means of using extended or expanded memory? There were memory libraries like DOS/16M that would allow use of extended memory and 80286+ Protected Mode without a lot of source changes. Informix, Lotus, etc. used it for their Protected Mode product line on DOS starting in the late 1980s.
flyinghamster 9y ago
Xenix was also ported to a variety of other architectures as well. At my very first programming job, we had a Z8000 running a very early (V7-like) Xenix port. Its performance was not impressive; a 386 could run rings around it. Also, the segmented memory architecture limited processes to 64K instructions and 64K data. At a later job, we had several projects that we put together on the 386 version of Xenix; one of those is still in service today. It had moved to OpenServer relatively early on, and stayed that way until early this summer; my task was to get it running on a modern Linux. I was very (pleasantly) surprised to discover that the Unify database is still available, even for RHEL7 - and it was possible to directly take the database files from the old system and use them unmodified on the new one. I wonder what prompted Microsoft to give up on Xenix? AT&T wanting too much money, or perhaps Not-Invented-Here syndrome? Windows could have been an X desktop.
- gaius 9y ago
  wonder what prompted Microsoft to give up on Xenix They reassigned the Xenix devs to OS/2 and sold Xenix to SCO (who were a real company back then).

by yuhong 9y ago

osullivj 9y ago

I ported a large Fortran codebase for mech eng analysis to Xenix from VMS back in the late 80s. We needed more than 640K, so DOS wouldn't do, and this was before Windows. I had to write a device driver for the 68000 based graphics card. That was my first real C coding experience. Fun! I didn't know about BSD at the time, but it looks like Xenix was System V [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix

DrScump 9y ago
Did you have a means of using extended or expanded memory? There were memory libraries like DOS/16M that would allow use of extended memory and 80286+ Protected Mode without a lot of source changes. Informix, Lotus, etc. used it for their Protected Mode product line on DOS starting in the late 1980s.

flyinghamster 9y ago

Xenix was also ported to a variety of other architectures as well. At my very first programming job, we had a Z8000 running a very early (V7-like) Xenix port. Its performance was not impressive; a 386 could run rings around it. Also, the segmented memory architecture limited processes to 64K instructions and 64K data. At a later job, we had several projects that we put together on the 386 version of Xenix; one of those is still in service today. It had moved to OpenServer relatively early on, and stayed that way until early this summer; my task was to get it running on a modern Linux. I was very (pleasantly) surprised to discover that the Unify database is still available, even for RHEL7 - and it was possible to directly take the database files from the old system and use them unmodified on the new one. I wonder what prompted Microsoft to give up on Xenix? AT&T wanting too much money, or perhaps Not-Invented-Here syndrome? Windows could have been an X desktop.

gaius 9y ago
wonder what prompted Microsoft to give up on Xenix They reassigned the Xenix devs to OS/2 and sold Xenix to SCO (who were a real company back then).