7 Dec
2024
7 Dec
'24
4:39 p.m.
On Fri, Dec 06, 2024 at 10:11:26PM -0500, Henry Bent wrote:
On Fri, 6 Dec 2024 at 17:53, Yeechang Lee
<ylee(a)columbia.edu> wrote:
The 1986 press release for the Deskpro 386 mentioned 386 Xenix
was planned for 1987.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-09-10-fi-13177-story.html
Intel and AT&T had ISC do a 386 port for SVR3.
"The 386/ix is based on Release 3.0, which was developed by Interactive
Systems Corp. Santa Monica, Calif., under contract to Intel and AT&T.
The code was tested through an extensive beta program managed by Intel
(with more than 60 80386 beta sites)."
Mini-Micro Systems, January 1988, p 45
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_MiniMicroS_59292072/page/44/mode/2up
https://bitsavers.org/magazines/Mini-Micro_Systems/198801.pdf
AT&T sold rebadged Olivetti machines with SVR3 in 1987:
"AT&T 6386 WGS is today's only 80386-based system to take full advantage
of its 32-bit architecture"
https://bitsavers.org/pdf/att/6386_wgs/6386_WGS_Brochure.pdf
ISC work was also used by Microport:
"Microport Runtime System V/386 is based on a version of Unix for the
80386 carried out by Interactive Technologies for AT&T and Intel."
Microport to Ship Version of Unix for 386
InfoWorld, Volume 9, Issue 9, 2 Mar 1987, p 3
https://books.google.com/books?id=1TAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA3
John Levine says:
I may be showing my ignorance here, but Compaq rushed to market a 386
machine so it could run... what? 16 bit DOS? Other 16 bit operating
systems? It's kind of astonishing to me that no one had a 32 bit operating
system ready for the 386 PC market, especially given that Intel had
released the chip to developers a year earlier. SVR2 was readily available
as a porting base but it appears that pretty much everyone dropped the ball
on having a UNIX ready for a fairly powerful $10k machine with a clearly
established market acceptance (from any vendor, not just Compaq or IBM). That was oddly shortsighted of IBM. Was it 16
bits is enough for
anything you'd do on your desktop, or 32 bits is too close to
competing with our big machines?
Compaq got its Deskpro 386 out by late 1986. IBM didn't see the urgency
and released the PS/2 Model 80 in June 1987. Not just IBM; HP, for example,
in 1987 was still saying publicly that it was evaluating when and how to
release its own 386 system.
Compaq's move panicked smaller competitors who didn't need to preserve
their dignity and knew what the computer meant, with many showing hastily
built prototypes at November 1986 Comdex.
While Microsoft did help Compaq while designing Deskpro 386, and Gates
attended the computer's announcement, I don't think it affected its plans
for Xenix and OS/2. The announcement did establish Compaq as arguably the
standard setter in IBM's place by 1990, or more accurately proved that IBM
was no longer the standard setter. Had Dell been the first out with a 386
box that might have affected its plans for Dell Unix, but Compaq never had
its own operating system until the DEC acquisition.