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Microsoft's Ancient History w/ Unix
NutscrapeSucks writes "The Register is running
a article which discusses Microsoft's experience running their own version of UNIX, called Xenix, as their standard desktop operating system. Before they got involved with OS/2 and later NT, Microsoft considered UNIX to be the PC operating system of the future. Talks about Bill Gates running vi, difficulties with AT&T, and other interesting tidbits."
There's a lot of stuff everyone knows, and a lot of stuff you probably didn't
know. Worth a read.
I guess the best product does not always perform the best in the marketplace.
Well, shit, you just blew all my fourth grade course material on economics right out the window.
Of course it doesn't. Ever heard of BeOS, or OS/2? How about car companies like DeLorean or Tucker, or hell, even AMC?
--saint
There are so many post I'd like to respond to that instead I'll post my replys in this one big message.
First of all, to the moderator who moderated to 0 the comment about NT meaning "New Technology", go read a little and you'll find out that it's true.
Second of all, Microsoft didn't rip off Unix. No sir they didn't. They just applied concepts that everyone has been incorporating for years in their OSes. It's like saying that the Saturn cars are ripping the 1900's Fords because Ford has been here for almost a century (I think, maybe it's some other company).
Third, if you've programmed a lot in Windows, you'll notice that the API is very different then it's Unix conterpart, and by that I don,t mean only different names for same methods. Ever noticed that everything in Windows is centralized around handles, objects and the WaitForSingleObject/WaitForMultipleObject that are used everywhere in the OS to wait for something to complete/release/signal/join? That's pretty elegant, and it enables a user to lock a lot of different resources (mutexes, event, thread, semaphores, sockets) all in once, helping to avoid some pretty nasty deadlocks sometimes. Unix and Linux doesn't have these. Go through the API, you'll say that it's very rich and not that much borrowed from Unix.
There are a lot of other Microsoft myths out there, and I guess that's because a lot of people just think they know stuff because they know how to recompile their kernel, when in fact they know "shit" about OS infrastructure and concepts.
I can corroborate that. I worked at Microsoft in the early 90's, too, as a tech writer. Sure enough, there was troff for the users' manual for Microsoft C Compiler. Most of the other writers edited on their desktops and then uploaded to a Xenix box for formatting.
The only other use for Xenix was to check your email.
I deployed a number of Xenix installations in the mid- to late 1980's, the last one in either 1989 or 1990. We were competing against Novell Netware networks (back when TeleVideo made that hideous Novell dedicated hardware with the 286 and the Z-80 and all the way to the IBM PS/2 model 80 days) and usually beat them hands down for an inventory and POS application. Our customers were medium-size enterprises (up to 200 employees, up to five physical locations). The configuration:
The advantages of using this:
NCR *nix, Xenix, Minix, and AIX 3.0 were the first *nix OSs I was involved with, back in 1985 and forward. I went from Apple's Applesoft/ProDOS/MacOS/UCSD Pascal to *nix, then to Microsoft's world.
All in all, I remember Xenix being one of the most complete *nix environments I played with. Only AIX running on RS/6000 (I was working on them prior to the announcement in March 1990) was more complete in its blend of SV and BSD tools. SCO occasionally facilitated SCO Unix to us but it was a PIA to install and configure, and lacked *lots* of driver support.
The interesting thing to us was that, while Xenix was an MS product, MS had a very hands off approach towards it. All customer relationships were handled by SCO. The only time I ever remember Bill G. saying something about it was when he was asked about branching NT away from OS/2 and whether he was afraid of losing market share to *nix. His reply (I'm paraphrasing): We have DOS, Windows, OS/2, Xenix, and NT. It's Microsoft against Microsoft against Microsoft against Microsoft.
OK, time to stop reminiscing. Have a great Saturday.
Ehttp://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
Sorry, doesn't work that way.
See http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/legends/godwin/.
It's not that Unix fell off, it's just that it didn't grow into new markets: PC's, low end workstations, embedded systems, etc. AT&T and all the other big Unix vendors had no interest in "toys", (Hubis, it'll get you every time). They sat around and *watched* Microsoft eat up entire markets.
Mac OS X. The "10" stands for "about 10 years to late".
Did MS actually *write* xenix, or just license it?
Regarding NT...
First, NT stands for "New Technology". It is a coincidence that "WNT" is offset by one from "VMS".
NT had some of the same designers as VMS.
NT was new. It is not based on unix.
NT *is* cool, and has done some cool things since day one. Do not confuse the NT kernel with the abortion of an operating environment Microsoft chose to build with it. As a kernel, it's very cool in many ways.
Yes, I mean cooler than unix.
BeOS, OS/2, etc only add further proof to the claim that the best product always wins in the marketplace.
6 30 .html
The problem with your 4th grade education is that you have to understand that the definition of "Best" is not defined by you, but rather by consumers.
As far as Tucker... That story is frequently exagerrated. Here's part of the story from someone who worked for Tucker:
http://www.dispatch.com/wheels/autonews/tucker0