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I had no idea there was a unix-like available at relatively reasonable cost before Linux. How is the c compiler, is there any way to compile some modern softwar

I had no idea there was a unix-like available at relatively reasonable cost before Linux. How is the c compiler, is there any way to compile some modern software for this?

macintux 3y ago
There was also Minix. I used to have a binder with the source code, eons ago. I don't know about the current state of Coherent support, but the Wikipedia page has some resource links. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherent_%28operating_system%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherent_%28operating_system%2...
- louky 3y ago
  I ordered a magtape of MINIX from the back of the AST book, but never got it running even after going through getting a tape reader. Was highly dissapointing as I saved up my allownace as a 15 year old to buy the tape.
johndoe0815 3y ago
Coherent was published by Mark-Williams, who also had their own C compiler (MWC), which was also available for CP/M86 and the Atari ST. It's a K&R compiler, so expect some trouble with compiling modern code (unprotoize might help a bit here). The final releases of Coherent (4.2 is the last one IIRC) also fully supported the iBCS COFF binary standard, so binaries compiled for e.g. SCO Unix might work. You could also try to build an old gcc version with the provided K&R compiler: https://www.autometer.de/unix4fun/coherent/coh_prog.html https://www.autometer.de/unix4fun/coherent/coh_prog.html
- johndoe0815 3y ago
  Compiled binaries (gcc and more) and VMs with Coherent 4.2 installations can be found on Udo Munk's site: https://www.autometer.de/unix4fun/coherent/ftp/ https://www.autometer.de/unix4fun/coherent/ftp/
dharmab 3y ago
Copies of BSD have been traded at various prices since the 70s ranging from "free, but bring your own tapes" at user groups to a few hundred bucks (about a couple thousand dollars today) for a packaged distribution with documentation. However BSD was tangled up in a lawsuit from 1991-1994, right as Linux was launched online as a free download.
nigel_bree 3y ago
You'd likely find the experience pretty miserable, not so much because of the C compiler - Steve did a great job with that - but actually because of the filesystem. Coherent was around for a long time, remember; it used a very classic V6 UNIX filesystem, complete with odd endianness of 32-bit fields in the inode and most significantly, the classic 14-character file name length. That right there will be an even bigger showstopper for the build scripts of most things than anything else. During the early 90's we could run GCC and Comeau C++ and all that kind of thing on Coherent fine because those codebases were still built for wide portability even though things like BSD FFS had opened that up - there were still plenty of machines running System III and System V code that most people took care not to create gratuitous collisions if truncation happened. Even shortly post the advent of Linux, that had changed dramatically and basically turned on its head and the effort involved in backporting to any flavour of classic UNIX (not just Coherent) quickly became almost impossible.
nils-m-holm 3y ago
Coherent had a K&R C compiler, so modern software would simply not compile. There is a tool called "unproto" that compiles ANSI (C89) programs with K&R compilers, and there is a Coherent version on my homepage (http://localhost/t3x.org/index.html#retro http://localhost/t3x.org/index.html#retro -- scoll down a bit). However, even this will probably not get you ver far with modern software. For 32-bit Coherent (4.0.0 and later) there is some 2.x GCC, but I have never used it and I doubt that it can compile software that is "modern" these days.
lproven 3y ago
> I had no idea there was a unix-like available at relatively reasonable cost before Linux. That is why I posted the link. Linux was not the first low-cost Unix for the PC. Very roughly, it went: * Unix only ran on proprietary kit. PCs were too small. * The 286 came along, and SCO took over Microsoft Xenix and offered it as a 286 OS -- expensive, and stuff we take for granted now, like networking, X11, and a compiler, were all separate expensive extras. * The 386 made Xenix a very credible usable OS, but it cost 10x as much as DOS or Windows. Commercial deployments in business, with no GUI, no networking, no compile, just statically-linked proprietary apps and dumb RS-232 terminals, mostly from Wyse. * As PCs got more powerful, other companies offered expensive PC Unixes too, and SCO officially licensed the AT&T kernel: SCO Xenix became SCO Unix. * Coherent came along with a very cheap and complete (but very limited) Unix-like OS. * Minix came along, even cheaper and you could get the source code. * It became possible to build and run BSD on PCs if you were a serious guru. * GNU considered the BSD kernel and decided against it, going for Mach and the HURD instead. (Oops.) * Linux came along and undercut Coherent, putting the MWC out of business. * NetBSD and FreeBSD became somewhat usable if you were highly capable. * Linux gradually became somewhat usable as a mainstream OS, with things like live CDs (Yggdrasil, Lasermoon Linux-FT) and installable modular distros with packaging (Red Hat Linux, Debian).

I had no idea there was a unix-like available at relatively reasonable cost before Linux. How is the c compiler, is there any way to compile some modern software for this?

macintux 3y ago

There was also Minix. I used to have a binder with the source code, eons ago. I don't know about the current state of Coherent support, but the Wikipedia page has some resource links. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherent_%28operating_system%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherent_%28operating_system%2...

louky 3y ago
I ordered a magtape of MINIX from the back of the AST book, but never got it running even after going through getting a tape reader. Was highly dissapointing as I saved up my allownace as a 15 year old to buy the tape.

johndoe0815 3y ago

Coherent was published by Mark-Williams, who also had their own C compiler (MWC), which was also available for CP/M86 and the Atari ST. It's a K&R compiler, so expect some trouble with compiling modern code (unprotoize might help a bit here). The final releases of Coherent (4.2 is the last one IIRC) also fully supported the iBCS COFF binary standard, so binaries compiled for e.g. SCO Unix might work. You could also try to build an old gcc version with the provided K&R compiler: https://www.autometer.de/unix4fun/coherent/coh_prog.html https://www.autometer.de/unix4fun/coherent/coh_prog.html

johndoe0815 3y ago
Compiled binaries (gcc and more) and VMs with Coherent 4.2 installations can be found on Udo Munk's site: https://www.autometer.de/unix4fun/coherent/ftp/ https://www.autometer.de/unix4fun/coherent/ftp/

dharmab 3y ago

Copies of BSD have been traded at various prices since the 70s ranging from "free, but bring your own tapes" at user groups to a few hundred bucks (about a couple thousand dollars today) for a packaged distribution with documentation. However BSD was tangled up in a lawsuit from 1991-1994, right as Linux was launched online as a free download.

nigel_bree 3y ago

You'd likely find the experience pretty miserable, not so much because of the C compiler - Steve did a great job with that - but actually because of the filesystem. Coherent was around for a long time, remember; it used a very classic V6 UNIX filesystem, complete with odd endianness of 32-bit fields in the inode and most significantly, the classic 14-character file name length. That right there will be an even bigger showstopper for the build scripts of most things than anything else. During the early 90's we could run GCC and Comeau C++ and all that kind of thing on Coherent fine because those codebases were still built for wide portability even though things like BSD FFS had opened that up - there were still plenty of machines running System III and System V code that most people took care not to create gratuitous collisions if truncation happened. Even shortly post the advent of Linux, that had changed dramatically and basically turned on its head and the effort involved in backporting to any flavour of classic UNIX (not just Coherent) quickly became almost impossible.

nils-m-holm 3y ago

Coherent had a K&R C compiler, so modern software would simply not compile. There is a tool called "unproto" that compiles ANSI (C89) programs with K&R compilers, and there is a Coherent version on my homepage (http://localhost/t3x.org/index.html#retro http://localhost/t3x.org/index.html#retro -- scoll down a bit). However, even this will probably not get you ver far with modern software. For 32-bit Coherent (4.0.0 and later) there is some 2.x GCC, but I have never used it and I doubt that it can compile software that is "modern" these days.

lproven 3y ago

> I had no idea there was a unix-like available at relatively reasonable cost before Linux. That is why I posted the link. Linux was not the first low-cost Unix for the PC. Very roughly, it went: * Unix only ran on proprietary kit. PCs were too small. * The 286 came along, and SCO took over Microsoft Xenix and offered it as a 286 OS -- expensive, and stuff we take for granted now, like networking, X11, and a compiler, were all separate expensive extras. * The 386 made Xenix a very credible usable OS, but it cost 10x as much as DOS or Windows. Commercial deployments in business, with no GUI, no networking, no compile, just statically-linked proprietary apps and dumb RS-232 terminals, mostly from Wyse. * As PCs got more powerful, other companies offered expensive PC Unixes too, and SCO officially licensed the AT&T kernel: SCO Xenix became SCO Unix. * Coherent came along with a very cheap and complete (but very limited) Unix-like OS. * Minix came along, even cheaper and you could get the source code. * It became possible to build and run BSD on PCs if you were a serious guru. * GNU considered the BSD kernel and decided against it, going for Mach and the HURD instead. (Oops.) * Linux came along and undercut Coherent, putting the MWC out of business. * NetBSD and FreeBSD became somewhat usable if you were highly capable. * Linux gradually became somewhat usable as a mainstream OS, with things like live CDs (Yggdrasil, Lasermoon Linux-FT) and installable modular distros with packaging (Red Hat Linux, Debian).