In the context of the 1980s and early 1990s, there was an x86 version of Solaris 2.x that had drivers for a few of the commonplace PC hardware devices of the ti

In the context of the 1980s and early 1990s, there was an x86 version of Solaris 2.x that had drivers for a few of the commonplace PC hardware devices of the time, so perhaps the home hacker might have been able to take that up, but probably only through a school licence. The ''real'' Solaris OS as well as HP-UX, AIX, IRIX, OSF/1, etc. were written and developed for the proprietary hardware platforms of Sun, HP, IBM, Silicon Graphics, DEC, respectively. The cost of those hardware devices kept them out of the home hacker's reach until used or EOL units started popping up many years later.