4 ms·

I don't know. MS and IBM wasted several years trying to make OS/2 for 286. If they'd started on a 386-only system back in 1985 when the cooperation was signed,

by pavlov 3y ago

I don't know. MS and IBM wasted several years trying to make OS/2 for 286. If they'd started on a 386-only system back in 1985 when the cooperation was signed, maybe they could have shipped a compelling 32-bit GUI operating system by 1989 and avoided the acrimony that broke the alliance. (Probably not though — the technology choices were only one ingredient in the divorce.)

bell-cot 3y ago
OS/2 for '286 came out in 1987. Then it took them 5 more years to get the '386 version out the door. Vs. tiny SCO was able to get the '386 version of their (Unix-based) Xenix OS out the door in 1987.
- lproven 3y ago
  This is absolutely true, but the thing is, SCO didn't have to be backwards compatible with a damned thing. Also note that the base addition of Xenix didn't support graphics, or sound, or networking, or come with a C compiler or anything. It was basically a runtime, for text only apps, and most machines only ran a single app. I put in dozens of boxes running Xenix back then. In my world, the bulk of them ran one binary: an accountancy application provided by Tetra Corporation, and we sold one called Tetraplan. SCO Xenix was a wonderful little operating system, extremely resource efficient, and astonishingly stable in use. Some of those boxes had uptimes in years. But that's relatively easy when it's not connected to anything, not connected to the outside world in any way, and only runs a single program. I am absolutely not denigrating Xenix. Xenix was my first experience of UNIX of any kind, I supported it for years, right into the 21st-century for one exceptional customer, and it caused me remarkably little pain of any kind. It was great. But it was not a mass market, general-purpose product.
  - pavlov 3y ago
    The funny thing is that Xenix was a Microsoft product. They originally licensed it to SCO who created the x86 port, then eventually sold it entirely to SCO in 1987. If things had turned out slightly differently, Microsoft's 32-bit OS in the 1990s would have been Unix.
    - lproven 3y ago
      Yes, absolutely, and what a different world it would be. OTOH, the GNU project nearly adopted the BSD4.4-Lite kernel. Then Linux would never have happened. Or, if DR hadn't been screwed over by Intel... Or, if Apple aimed the Lisa lower, or the Mac higher... Or, if Xerox knew what it had and successfully sold it... So many "what ifs"...
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    Yeah, but: OS/2 286's backwards compatibility was miserably limited. Xenix selling the networking and C compiler separately was a business decision, not a way to make anything easier for the developers. Running "just one app" was also a business decision. And contrast that Xenix stability with umpteen million other 1980's and 90's computers which did one job, with no network...but ran crash-tastic MS-DOS.

by pavlov 3y ago

bell-cot 3y ago

OS/2 for '286 came out in 1987. Then it took them 5 more years to get the '386 version out the door. Vs. tiny SCO was able to get the '386 version of their (Unix-based) Xenix OS out the door in 1987.

lproven 3y ago
This is absolutely true, but the thing is, SCO didn't have to be backwards compatible with a damned thing. Also note that the base addition of Xenix didn't support graphics, or sound, or networking, or come with a C compiler or anything. It was basically a runtime, for text only apps, and most machines only ran a single app. I put in dozens of boxes running Xenix back then. In my world, the bulk of them ran one binary: an accountancy application provided by Tetra Corporation, and we sold one called Tetraplan. SCO Xenix was a wonderful little operating system, extremely resource efficient, and astonishingly stable in use. Some of those boxes had uptimes in years. But that's relatively easy when it's not connected to anything, not connected to the outside world in any way, and only runs a single program. I am absolutely not denigrating Xenix. Xenix was my first experience of UNIX of any kind, I supported it for years, right into the 21st-century for one exceptional customer, and it caused me remarkably little pain of any kind. It was great. But it was not a mass market, general-purpose product.
- pavlov 3y ago
  The funny thing is that Xenix was a Microsoft product. They originally licensed it to SCO who created the x86 port, then eventually sold it entirely to SCO in 1987. If things had turned out slightly differently, Microsoft's 32-bit OS in the 1990s would have been Unix.
  - lproven 3y ago
    Yes, absolutely, and what a different world it would be. OTOH, the GNU project nearly adopted the BSD4.4-Lite kernel. Then Linux would never have happened. Or, if DR hadn't been screwed over by Intel... Or, if Apple aimed the Lisa lower, or the Mac higher... Or, if Xerox knew what it had and successfully sold it... So many "what ifs"...
- bell-cot 3y ago
  Yeah, but: OS/2 286's backwards compatibility was miserably limited. Xenix selling the networking and C compiler separately was a business decision, not a way to make anything easier for the developers. Running "just one app" was also a business decision. And contrast that Xenix stability with umpteen million other 1980's and 90's computers which did one job, with no network...but ran crash-tastic MS-DOS.