6 Dec
2024
6 Dec
'24
10:10 p.m.
I just came across a 1995 post from Gordon Letwin, early Microsoft employee
and lead architect of OS/2, about the history of OS/2. There are a few
paragraphs in it about Microsoft and UNIX. Here's Letwin's post:
https://gunkies.org/wiki/Gordon_Letwin_OS/2_usenet_post
And the UNIX-related paragraphs:
*It's extremely hard to do development work on an operating system when
someone else controls the standard. "Control" in this case is a matter of
public perception. For example, Microsoft was once very big in the Unix
world. In fact, we considered it our candidate for the future desktop
operating system, when machines got powerful enough to run something good.
We were the worlds biggest seller of Unix systems. DOS was, when we first
wrote it, a one-time throw-away product intended to keep IBM happy so that
they'd buy our languages.The UNIX contracts were all done when Bell Labs
was regulated and couldn't sell Unix into the commerical marketplace. So
although they wrote it and were paid royalties, they couldn't develop it in
competition to us. But after a few years that changed. Bell was
degregulated and now they were selling Unix directly, in competition to
us! They might sell it for cheaper than we had to pay them in royalties!
But that wasn't the real killer, the real killer was the Bell now
controlled the standard. If we wrote an API extension that did X, and Bell
wrote an incompatible one that did Y, which one would people write for?
The ISVs know that AT&T was a very big company and that they'd written the
original, so they'd believe that AT&T controlled the standard, not MS, and
that belief would then define reality. So we'd always just be waiting for
what AT&T announced and then frantically trying to duplicate it.Bill Gates
knew, right away, that there was no strong future in Unix for us any more.
Fortunately at that time, DOS was taking off and we were learning, along
with everyone else, about the power of standards. So the primary OS team -
the Unix guys - joined with the secondary OS team - the DOS guys - and the
earliest versions of OS/2 were born. (This was before IBM came on board,
so it wasn't called OS/2!)*
Marc Rochkind
6 Dec
6 Dec
10:38 p.m.
And by concatenation, that's how we wound up with a VMS clone on our desktops.
________________________________
From: Marc Rochkind <mrochkind(a)gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, December 6, 2024 11:10 AM
To: The UNIX Historical Society <tuhs(a)tuhs.org>
Subject: [TUHS] Interesting post about Microsoft and UNIX
I just came across a 1995 post from Gordon Letwin, early Microsoft employee and lead
architect of OS/2, about the history of OS/2. There are a few paragraphs in it about
Microsoft and UNIX. Here's Letwin's post:
https://gunkies.org/wiki/Gordon_Letwin_OS/2_usenet_post
And the UNIX-related paragraphs:
It's extremely hard to do development work on an operating system when someone else
controls the standard. "Control" in this case is a matter of public perception.
For example, Microsoft was once very big in the Unix world. In fact, we considered it
our candidate for the future desktop operating system, when machines got powerful enough
to run something good. We were the worlds biggest seller of Unix systems. DOS was, when
we first wrote it, a one-time throw-away product intended to keep IBM happy so that
they'd buy our languages.
The UNIX contracts were all done when Bell Labs was regulated and couldn't sell Unix
into the commerical marketplace. So although they wrote it and were paid royalties, they
couldn't develop it in competition to us. But after a few years that changed. Bell
was degregulated and now they were selling Unix directly, in competition to us! They
might sell it for cheaper than we had to pay them in royalties! But that wasn't the
real killer, the real killer was the Bell now controlled the standard. If we wrote an API
extension that did X, and Bell wrote an incompatible one that did Y, which one would
people write for? The ISVs know that AT&T was a very big company and that they'd
written the original, so they'd believe that AT&T controlled the standard, not
MS, and that belief would then define reality. So we'd always just be waiting for
what AT&T announced and then frantically trying to duplicate it.
Bill Gates knew, right away, that there was no strong future in Unix for us any more.
Fortunately at that time, DOS was taking off and we were learning, along with everyone
else, about the power of standards. So the primary OS team - the Unix guys - joined with
the secondary OS team - the DOS guys - and the earliest versions of OS/2 were born. (This
was before IBM came on board, so it wasn't called OS/2!)
Marc Rochkind
7 Dec
7 Dec
1:29 a.m.
On Fri, 6 Dec 2024 at 12:13, Al Kossow <aek(a)bitsavers.org> wrote:
On 12/6/24 8:38 AM, Arthur Krewat wrote:
Are you referring strictly to the 386 as a UNIX machine? The 386 shipped
in 1986 and the IBM PS/2 Model 80 (with a 386) shipped in '87. My
assumption is that the driving factor in keeping the lower end PS/2
machines around was cost - at launch, a PS/2 with an 8086 was $2300 while
one with a 386 was over $10k. Of course, the 386 PS/2 was initially
targeted at OS/2 and not UNIX; from what I can find AIX PS/2 didn't ship
until at least late 1988.
-Henry
/his was before IBM came on board/
and IBM had no interest in the 386 at the time
12:33 a.m.
According to Al Kossow <aek(a)bitsavers.org>:
On 12/6/24 8:38 AM, Arthur Krewat wrote:
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?
--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl(a)taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for
Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly
/his was before IBM came on board/
and IBM had no interest in the 386 at the time, which set the
wheels in motion for Gates to acquire Cutler and DECwest 
4:43 a.m.
John Levine says:
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.
9:11 a.m.
On Fri, 6 Dec 2024 at 17:53, Yeechang Lee <ylee(a)columbia.edu> wrote:
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).
-Henry
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.
9:38 a.m.
Henry Bent 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?
Yes. Contemporary news articles on the announcement discuss this, stating that a) no
current software takes full advantage of the 386's power, and b) regardless, those
who need the added horsepower would still benefit. The Deskpro 386's strong sales
proved that this view was correct.
It's kind of astonishing to me that no one had a
32 bit operating
system ready for the 386 PC market
IBM, as mentioned, did not think the market wanted or needed a 386-based computer. In 1986
its fastest PC was the 286-based IBM AT, and in the two years since no one had released
any software requiring the 286; everyone treated it as a faster 8088 or 8086.
The AT was in 1984 an aberration, really the only time in the IBM PC's history that
the IBM product was state of the art. IBM otherwise followed a PC product lifecycle
similar to that of its big iron; the original 1981 IBM PC was still sold until the PS/2
introduction in 1987, for example. The company was very surprised when its 1985
discontinuation of the PCjr upset customers, because IBM expected that its normal practice
of promising ongoing support for a period of years into the future would be sufficient.
The only vendors with credibility to establish a new industry standard with an operating
system in 1984 or 1986 were IBM and Microsoft. Had AT&T's entry into the computer
market after divestiture not occurred, Microsoft would likely have continued pushing Xenix
and might well have had a 386-specific version ready soon after the Deskpro 386. Such a
product would in time surely have used the virtual 8086 hardware feature to execute DOS
software on Xenix, akin to contemporary Windows's similar feature but with the
advantages of a) actually working and b) with preemptive multitasking.
9:55 a.m.
I'm sure Compaq was thinking ahead. They would be very aware of Microsoft's
Windows plans. Buyers also think ahead, especially corporate buyers, who
are the real customers.
Marc
On Fri, Dec 6, 2024, 8:11 PM Henry Bent <henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, 6 Dec 2024 at 17:53, Yeechang Lee
<ylee(a)columbia.edu> wrote:
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).
-Henry
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.
11 Dec
11 Dec
4:41 a.m.
At Fri, 6 Dec 2024 20:55:36 -0700, Marc Rochkind <mrochkind(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Subject: [TUHS] Re: Interesting post about Microsoft and UNIX
I'm sure Compaq was thinking ahead. They would be very aware of Microsoft's
Windows plans. Buyers also think ahead, especially corporate buyers, who
are the real customers.
I was working on contracts at Canadian Pacific Railway at about that
time. I'm pretty sure CP would have been a big customer for 386
machines. They were an early adopter of PCs in general for a larger
corporation (CP was one of the first "paperless" companies in Canada,
with PCs on every desktop and being pushed out to big customers to
interface via 3270 emulation cards and custom software with their
mainframe systems for ordering train cars, etc. Meanwhile many similar-
sized companies with mainframes were still all just using plain old 3270
terminals (i.e. without custom interface software).)
At the time of the debut of the 386 we were building a new track control
system for the Broadview subdivision and it was being built with Intel
286 systems running Xenix. I think they may have been Compaq hardware,
though earlier MS-DOS projects I worked on at CP were using Olivetti
PCs, though CP also certainly had PCs from Compaq and IBM as well.
I was doing device drivers (including one for a Matrox graphics card),
various support libraries such as an IPC framework, and general
toolchain and OS support for the project.
I remember putting up a poster from Intel of the i386 chip in my cubicle
to remind colleagues of the exciting 32-bit things soon to come. I
don't remember having any worries that there would be any problem with
getting a 386 version of Xenix or some other Unix.
--
Greg A. Woods <gwoods(a)acm.org>
Kelowna, BC +1 250 762-7675 RoboHack <woods(a)robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods(a)planix.com> Avoncote Farms <woods(a)avoncote.ca>
7 Dec
7 Dec
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.
6:34 p.m.
This is all very enlightening, thank you. Comments inline...
On Sat, 7 Dec 2024 at 05:39, Jonathan Gray <jsg(a)jsg.id.au> 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
I found https://www.tech-insider.org/unix/research/1987/0902.html which
includes the following quote:
"UNIX System V and the 80386 are a perfect technological match," said Bill
Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corporation, in remarks at AT&T's press
conference here. AT&T and Microsoft are developing a new version of UNIX
System V for the 80386 chip that will run XENIX System V as well as UNIX
System V applications.
This is September 1987, so perhaps Microsoft's abandonment of Xenix was not
as early as I had thought. Though this does imply that the Xenix port was
not ready at that point, and perhaps was ultimately abandoned by Microsoft.
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
I'm not familiar with 386/ix so I'll have to let others comment here,
though I do note that we're now slipping into 1988.
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
This is fascinating, as it claims "concurrent running of both MS-DOS and
true 32-bit UNIX System V programs." They were also serious about market
positioning - the larger model could handle up to 64MB of RAM and two 135MB
disks. I'd appreciate any further details on the exact operating system.
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
Also interesting; I wonder if the "capability to run multiple MS-DOS
applications under Unix" was shipped in a functional form, and what
relation it might or might not have had to what was running on the AT&T
hardware.
-Henry
7:09 p.m.
On 7 Dec 2024, at 13:34, Henry Bent
<henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Also interesting; I wonder if the "capability to run multiple MS-DOS applications
under Unix" was shipped in a functional form, and what relation it might or might not
have had to what was running on the AT&T hardware.
I used to run an 80286 “Taiwan clone” (as we called them in Italy) with Xenix 286 and,
later, its 386 version which was SCO by then (memory a bit fuzzy on when Xenix became SCO
Xenix and the Unix) and I definitely could run MS-DOS programs on the 386 - you would use
the dos command which mapped drives either to physical drives (i.e. A: was the floppy) or
directories within the filesystem.
It was often used for businesses which had their inventory on MS-DOS bespoke software but
wanted to “multitask” so we had some very dirty code which would run the DOS program on
the serial terminals writing to a “network” drive which was actually a directory in the
Unix filesystem.
In the meantime I was busy writing a migration layer which would allow us to compile the
MS-DOS C code on Unix natively replacing, for example, code writing the pretty box
characters on MS-DOS with curses equivalents. Fortunately the DB stuff was all
C-ISAM for which a portable library existed.
All of this was strictly with licenses found off the back of a truck, of course. Licensing
bypass in Italy was a national sport.
(this was all done using the VM86 extension which, incidentally, still exists in Intel
chips… this opens a whole other story about forgotten Intel extensions lingering in 2024
cores which can be used nefariously).
Arrigo
7:45 p.m.
On Sat, 7 Dec 2024 at 08:09, Arrigo Triulzi <arrigo(a)alchemistowl.org> wrote:
Interesting, thank you for the explanation. How was file locking handled
for DOS programs? Did it have some sort of internal call to "share" or was
there a more elegant method?
-Henry
On 7 Dec 2024, at 13:34, Henry Bent
<henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Also interesting; I wonder if the "capability to run multiple MS-DOS
applications under Unix" was shipped in a functional form, and what
relation it might or might not have had to what was running on the AT&T
hardware.
I used to run an 80286 “Taiwan clone” (as we called them in Italy) with
Xenix 286 and, later, its 386 version which was SCO by then (memory a bit
fuzzy on when Xenix became SCO Xenix and the Unix) and I definitely could
run MS-DOS programs on the 386 - you would use the dos command which mapped
drives either to physical drives (i.e. A: was the floppy) or directories
within the filesystem.
It was often used for businesses which had their inventory on MS-DOS
bespoke software but wanted to “multitask” so we had some very dirty code
which would run the DOS program on the serial terminals writing to a
“network” drive which was actually a directory in the Unix filesystem.
10:12 p.m.
On 7 Dec 2024, at 14:45, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Interesting, thank you for the explanation. How was
file locking handled for DOS programs? Did it have some sort of internal call to
"share" or was there a more elegant method?
Well, as the Unix filesystem was connected to MS-DOS as a “network drive” it had
rudimentary opportunistic locking via the SMB protocol which I am not entirely sure
actually translated to anything on the Unix side. There was often data corruption when
writing from multiple MS-DOS sessions to the same file so the customer, who was
particularly keen on the reading from multiple terminals more than the writing, simply
decided that only one person could write into the inventory at one time. “Sneaker lock”?
Anyway, the port to native Unix was achieved in a couple of months, this was the ‘80s,
code was simple and you didn’t have three rows of obscure buttons, a menu on top, another
one to the side, etc. to be able to write a letter… Once we moved to Unix C-ISAM
implemented proper record-level locking in the library itself and the problem went away
(except for the inevitable code changes to handle C-ISAM saying “can’t access the record
as it is locked, try again later”).
Arrigo
10:28 p.m.
On 7 Dec 2024, at 17:12, Arrigo Triulzi via TUHS <tuhs(a)tuhs.org> wrote:
Well, as the Unix filesystem was connected to MS-DOS
as a “network drive” it had rudimentary opportunistic locking via the SMB protocol which I
am not entirely sure actually translated to anything on the Unix side. There was often
data corruption when writing from multiple MS-DOS sessions to the same file so the
customer, who was particularly keen on the reading from multiple terminals more than the
writing, simply decided that only one person could write into the inventory at one time.
“Sneaker lock”?
Correction: it cannot possibly be SMB, that came later - I haven’t the faintest idea of
what the network protocol was called in MS-DOS, I just remember you had to load something
in CONFIG.SYS on MS-DOS 4 or higher to make it work.
Arrigo
10:38 p.m.
On Sat, Dec 7, 2024, 9:28 AM Arrigo Triulzi via TUHS <tuhs(a)tuhs.org> wrote:
On 7 Dec 2024, at 17:12, Arrigo Triulzi via TUHS
<tuhs(a)tuhs.org> wrote:
Yes. There were namespace hooks of a sort that one could hook into via a
TSR... I wrote something for a DOS 3.1 system that had a few initial
UNDOCUMENTED interfaces. I couldn't ever get anything to work beyond the
init...
Warner
Well, as the Unix filesystem was connected to
MS-DOS as a “network
drive” it had rudimentary opportunistic locking via the SMB
protocol which
I am not entirely sure actually translated to anything on the Unix side.
There was often data corruption when writing from multiple MS-DOS sessions
to the same file so the customer, who was particularly keen on the reading
from multiple terminals more than the writing, simply decided that only one
person could write into the inventory at one time. “Sneaker lock”?
Correction: it cannot possibly be SMB, that came later - I haven’t the
faintest idea of what the network protocol was called in MS-DOS, I just
remember you had to load something in CONFIG.SYS on MS-DOS 4 or higher to
make it work.
10:41 p.m.
On 7 Dec 2024, at 17:38, Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
Yes. There were namespace hooks of a sort that one
could hook into via a TSR... I wrote something for a DOS 3.1 system that had a few initial
UNDOCUMENTED interfaces. I couldn't ever get anything to work beyond the init...
Yes, TSRs… the art of loading them in the correct sequence so that you did not make your
machine unstable. Some we really quite useful, for example there was one which I seem to
recall was called “Tornado” which allowed you to write linked and indexed notes, a bit
like an early Hypercard?
Then there were the ones hooking services to give you access to the RAM between 640kB and
1MB, the ones to page in & out memory > 1MB, oh the horrors… I was really rather
pleased with my 386 running Unix!
Arrigo
11:01 p.m.
On Sat, 7 Dec 2024 at 11:12, Arrigo Triulzi <arrigo(a)alchemistowl.org> wrote:
On 7 Dec 2024, at 14:45, Henry Bent
<henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Sadly, that's the answer I was expecting - the locking didn't really work
in practice. That might go some way towards explaining why this concept of
multiple DOS sessions under UNIX didn't really have widespread adoption.
There were always all sorts of "DOS under UNIX" ideas, from these early
concepts through all the way to Sun's physical PC boards, but none of them
ever really seemed to gain significant traction. The only connecting
concept seems to be that DOS just wasn't meant to be a multi-user OS, and
certainly not a networked one.
-Henry
Interesting, thank you for the explanation. How
was file locking
handled for DOS programs? Did it have some sort of internal call
to
"share" or was there a more elegant method?
Well, as the Unix filesystem was connected to MS-DOS as a “network drive”
it had rudimentary opportunistic locking via the SMB protocol which I am
not entirely sure actually translated to anything on the Unix side. There
was often data corruption when writing from multiple MS-DOS sessions to the
same file so the customer, who was particularly keen on the reading from
multiple terminals more than the writing, simply decided that only one
person could write into the inventory at one time. “Sneaker lock”?
8 Dec
8 Dec
12:15 a.m.
On 7 Dec 2024, at 18:01, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Sadly, that's the answer I was expecting - the
locking didn't really work in practice. That might go some way towards explaining
why this concept of multiple DOS sessions under UNIX didn't really have widespread
adoption.
I cannot honestly see how it could be made to work - locking, even in Unix, was very much
a case of “let’s hope we all use the same function call” and, in the specific case of
MS-DOS, was hardly necessary since it was a single-user OS running a single application at
a time. The arrival of networking probably introduced locking to MS-DOS in the same way
hopeful way.
There was no real expectation on our part that the DB would not be corrupted by multiple
MS-DOS sessions writing to it, even if using C-ISAM, because the assumption would have
always been “one machine, one user, one task”. Fortunately the port to Unix fixed this
because C-ISAM was conscious of the concept of multiple accesses to the database.
There were always all sorts of "DOS under
UNIX" ideas, from these early concepts through all the way to Sun's physical PC
boards, but none of them ever really seemed to gain significant traction. The only
connecting concept seems to be that DOS just wasn't meant to be a multi-user OS, and
certainly not a networked one.
Even on the i286 there were attempts at having MS-DOS running within a multi-user OS.
Remember that OS/2 on the 80286 used a triple fault to get you back into real mode to
execute an MS-DOS program.
"Running MS-DOS” was really important in those days and a lot of effort was expended
trying to get that to work in some way[1].
Arrigo
[1] I am a (very) guilty party for flooring my CPUs and making fans sound like 747s by
running Simcity 2000 and Railroad Tycoon in dosbox on Linux.
7 Dec
7 Dec
8:09 p.m.
On 12/7/24 5:09 AM, Arrigo Triulzi via TUHS wrote:
forgotten Intel extensions lingering in 2024 cores
which can be used nefariously
There has been an effort by Intel to expunge a lot of PC-isms from their CPUs and
ASICs in recent years. I know someone who worked on that out of the architecture
group in Oregon.
WRT IBM's interest in the 386, OS/2 didn't release a 32 bit version until 2.0
in
1991, well into the 486 era (1989).
https://www.quora.com/Why-did-IBMs-OS-2-project-lose-to-Microsoft-given-tha…
9:27 p.m.
On Sat, Dec 07, 2024 at 07:34:07AM -0500, Henry Bent wrote:
Microport sold 'Merge 386' from Locus Computing Corporation.
Also available for AIX on PS/2 Model 80. AIX for PS/2 wasn't available
till 1988.
This is all very enlightening, thank you. Comments
inline...
On Sat, 7 Dec 2024 at 05:39, Jonathan Gray <jsg(a)jsg.id.au> wrote:
ISC had it running well before then. I'm not sure when 386/ix was
commercially available, 1987?
"We keep reading articles that say there is no operating system that
uses the full features of the 386, but we have had such an operating
system functioning since last June."
Betty Niimi, Interactive Systems
Unix to Lead in 80386-Based Operating System Shipments
InfoWorld, December 22, 1986, p 8
https://books.google.com/books?id=UjwEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA8
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
I found https://www.tech-insider.org/unix/research/1987/0902.html which
includes the following quote:
"UNIX System V and the 80386 are a perfect technological match," said Bill
Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corporation, in remarks at AT&T's press
conference here. AT&T and Microsoft are developing a new version of UNIX
System V for the 80386 chip that will run XENIX System V as well as UNIX
System V applications.
This is September 1987, so perhaps Microsoft's abandonment of Xenix was not
as early as I had thought. Though this does imply that the Xenix port was
not ready at that point, and perhaps was ultimately abandoned by Microsoft.
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
I'm not familiar with 386/ix so I'll have to let others comment here,
though I do note that we're now slipping into 1988.
AT&T sold rebadged Olivetti machines with SVR3 in 1987:
AT&T had 'Simul-Task 386' which was based on VP/ix from
Phoenix Technologies Limited and Interactive Systems Corporation.
VP/ix also appeared on the Sun 386i in 1988.
"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
This is fascinating, as it claims "concurrent running of both MS-DOS and
true 32-bit UNIX System V programs." They were also serious about market
positioning - the larger model could handle up to 64MB of RAM and two 135MB
disks. I'd appreciate any further details on the exact operating system. 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
Also interesting; I wonder if the "capability to run multiple MS-DOS
applications under Unix" was shipped in a functional form, and what
relation it might or might not have had to what was running on the AT&T
hardware. 
9 Dec
9 Dec
1:14 p.m.
On Sat, Dec 07, 2024 at 07:34:07AM -0500, Henry Bent wrote:
"UNIX System V and the 80386 are a perfect
technological match," said Bill
Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corporation, in remarks at AT&T's press conference
here. AT&T and Microsoft are developing a new version of UNIX System V for the
80386 chip that will run XENIX System V as well as UNIX System V applications.
This is September 1987, so perhaps Microsoft's abandonment of Xenix was not as
early as I had thought. Though this does imply that the Xenix port was not
ready at that point, and perhaps was ultimately abandoned by Microsoft.
https://www.landley.net/history/mirror/unix/scohistory.html states that:
"1987 - SCO ships SCO XENIX 386, the first 32-bit operating system (and first
UNIX System) for Intel 386 processor-based systems."
So it looks like XENIX development had been already stopped at MS and taken
on/over by SCO in the meantime.
Matches up with the WIKI doc on Xenix and the transfer of it's ownership from
MS to SCO:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix#:~:text=SCO's%20Xenix%20System%20V….
So it seems around 1985/6 MS stopped any real Xenix development and got out
of the UNIX market, after which SCO went on with it.
Side-note...
Compaq servers running SCO UNIX versions were *very* popular in the small
to medium business area here from the late 80's onward.
Lots of 'productivity' software like administrative/financial/etc. software
on SCO that allowed many people to work concurrently using one or a few servers
and either terminals or some sort of networking. (Ahhhhh... The days
of the network-wars with oodles of competing more and lesser known
network types.. Messy and convoluted, but quite fun... :) )
The fact that it was UNIX underneath was totally irrelevant to most end
customers though. They just got/ran it to run their business and it worked
much better than any MS-based solution until the early 2000s.
Used to be a large part of my work during the early 90's to maintain, upgrade
and fix such systems as the end customers usually had no technical people
onsite anyway.
Bye, Arno.
6 Dec
6 Dec
11:28 p.m.
On Friday, December 6th, 2024 at 8:10 AM, Marc Rochkind <mrochkind(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
I just came across a 1995 post from Gordon Letwin,
early Microsoft employee and lead architect of OS/2, about the history of OS/2. There are
a few paragraphs in it about Microsoft and UNIX. Here's Letwin's post:
https://gunkies.org/wiki/Gordon_Letwin_OS/2_usenet_post
And the UNIX-related paragraphs:
It's extremely hard to do development work on an operating system when someone else
controls the standard. "Control" in this case is a matter of public perception.
For example, Microsoft was once very big in the Unix world. In fact, we considered it our
candidate for the future desktop operating system, when machines got powerful enough to
run something good. We were the worlds biggest seller of Unix systems. DOS was, when we
first wrote it, a one-time throw-away product intended to keep IBM happy so that
they'd buy our languages.
The UNIX contracts were all done when Bell Labs was regulated and couldn't sell Unix
into the commerical marketplace. So although they wrote it and were paid royalties, they
couldn't develop it in competition to us. But after a few years that changed. Bell
was degregulated and now they were selling Unix directly, in competition to us! They might
sell it for cheaper than we had to pay them in royalties! But that wasn't the real
killer, the real killer was the Bell now controlled the standard. If we wrote an API
extension that did X, and Bell wrote an incompatible one that did Y, which one would
people write for? The ISVs know that AT&T was a very big company and that they'd
written the original, so they'd believe that AT&T controlled the standard, not
MS, and that belief would then define reality. So we'd always just be waiting for
what AT&T announced and then frantically trying to duplicate it.
Bill Gates knew, right away, that there was no strong future in Unix for us any more.
Fortunately at that time, DOS was taking off and we were learning, along with everyone
else, about the power of standards. So the primary OS team - the Unix guys - joined with
the secondary OS team - the DOS guys - and the earliest versions of OS/2 were born. (This
was before IBM came on board, so it wasn't called OS/2!)
Marc Rochkind
Regarding the Microsoft/UNIX connection, while AT&T was central in the UNIX world,
Microsoft is famous for their volume, I find myself wondering if Microsoft ever considered
working *with* AT&T as an angle. Would this have run afoul of their relationship with
IBM? I understand it that AT&T was trying to posture themselves as an IBM competitor
in the hardware market in the ATTIS era, so I could see this factoring into Microsoft
pulling out rather than espousing an angle of "If you can't beat them, join
them." Again though, given their volume, I could see an alternate timeline where
Microsoft approached AT&T and AT&T was more than willing to leverage a
relationship with Microsoft given the uptake of Xenix. AT&T would eventually plunder
Xenix for bits leading up to SVR4 anyway, granted this was many years later with more
perspective.
Another angle I've pondered on too is if Microsoft would've been amenable to
that sort of thing but AT&T wouldn't have. They had just settled a huge
anti-trust case. Pairing themselves with the single largest distributor of UNIX may have
been to scarily close to cornering a market for their comfort, so maybe even if Microsoft
had considered that, I could see trepidation on AT&Ts part regarding high-profile
integration with an operation like Microsoft at the time...
Cool stuff though, I've been studying this point of history a bit lately WRT the
UTS/386 connection brought up recently. In a similar "don't mess with IBM"
vein, it's had me wondering if Intel management would've been sketchy about
using UTS for anything since Amdahl was a prominent IBM competitor. I get the impression
that industry players that managed to curry IBMs favor somehow then had to tiptoe
carefully around anything that might smell of engaging with competition. Just my view in
hindsight though, as always, I wasn't there, I'm just fascinated with the
conditions that lead to the world I live in :)
- Matt G.
7 Dec
7 Dec
4:04 a.m.
To add a footnote to this discussion regarding MS and UNIX.
We started work on the "UNIX standard" in 1981 under the
auspices of /usr/group. Many of the small UNIX system vendors
and application developers joined the effort right up front,
including UNIX-like vendors. It took a little longer to get AT&T
to participate, and then even longer to get IBM to join. MS
participated in our efforts because of their Xenix products
for a while but then suddenly pulled out. Don't remember
the exact date, but they never joined us again. The Proposed
/usr/group Standard published in January 1984 includes one
name from MS in its Working Group membership. The final
/usr/group Standard was published in November 1984 still
includes the one name from MS among its 60+ members.
Letwin's 1995 post explains why MS withdrew from the
/usr/group Standards effort, which is the foundation of
today's POSIX Standard published by the IEEE.
Heinz
On 12/6/2024 9:28 AM, segaloco via TUHS wrote:
On Friday, December 6th, 2024 at 8:10 AM, Marc
Rochkind <mrochkind(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I just came across a 1995 post from Gordon
Letwin, early Microsoft employee and lead architect of OS/2, about the history of OS/2.
There are a few paragraphs in it about Microsoft and UNIX. Here's Letwin's
post:
https://gunkies.org/wiki/Gordon_Letwin_OS/2_usenet_post
And the UNIX-related paragraphs:
It's extremely hard to do development work on an operating system when someone else
controls the standard. "Control" in this case is a matter of public perception.
For example, Microsoft was once very big in the Unix world. In fact, we considered it our
candidate for the future desktop operating system, when machines got powerful enough to
run something good. We were the worlds biggest seller of Unix systems. DOS was, when we
first wrote it, a one-time throw-away product intended to keep IBM happy so that
they'd buy our languages.
The UNIX contracts were all done when Bell Labs was regulated and couldn't sell Unix
into the commerical marketplace. So although they wrote it and were paid royalties, they
couldn't develop it in competition to us. But after a few years that changed. Bell
was degregulated and now they were selling Unix directly, in competition to us! They might
sell it for cheaper than we had to pay them in royalties! But that wasn't the real
killer, the real killer was the Bell now controlled the standard. If we wrote an API
extension that did X, and Bell wrote an incompatible one that did Y, which one would
people write for? The ISVs know that AT&T was a very big company and that they'd
written the original, so they'd believe that AT&T controlled the standard, not
MS, and that belief would then define reality. So we'd always just be waiting for
what AT&T announced and then frantically trying to duplicate it.
Bill Gates knew, right away, that there was no strong future in Unix for us any more.
Fortunately at that time, DOS was taking off and we were learning, along with everyone
else, about the power of standards. So the primary OS team - the Unix guys - joined with
the secondary OS team - the DOS guys - and the earliest versions of OS/2 were born. (This
was before IBM came on board, so it wasn't called OS/2!)
Marc Rochkind
Regarding the Microsoft/UNIX connection, while AT&T was central in the UNIX
world, Microsoft is famous for their volume, I find myself wondering if Microsoft ever
considered working *with* AT&T as an angle. Would this have run afoul of their
relationship with IBM? I understand it that AT&T was trying to posture themselves as
an IBM competitor in the hardware market in the ATTIS era, so I could see this factoring
into Microsoft pulling out rather than espousing an angle of "If you can't beat
them, join them." Again though, given their volume, I could see an alternate
timeline where Microsoft approached AT&T and AT&T was more than willing to
leverage a relationship with Microsoft given the uptake of Xenix. AT&T would
eventually plunder Xenix for bits leading up to SVR4 anyway, granted this was many years
later with more perspective.
Another angle I've pondered on too is if Microsoft would've been amenable to
that sort of thing but AT&T wouldn't have. They had just settled a huge
anti-trust case. Pairing themselves with the single largest distributor of UNIX may have
been to scarily close to cornering a market for their comfort, so maybe even if Microsoft
had considered that, I could see trepidation on AT&Ts part regarding high-profile
integration with an operation like Microsoft at the time...
Cool stuff though, I've been studying this point of history a bit lately WRT the
UTS/386 connection brought up recently. In a similar "don't mess with IBM"
vein, it's had me wondering if Intel management would've been sketchy about
using UTS for anything since Amdahl was a prominent IBM competitor. I get the impression
that industry players that managed to curry IBMs favor somehow then had to tiptoe
carefully around anything that might smell of engaging with competition. Just my view in
hindsight though, as always, I wasn't there, I'm just fascinated with the
conditions that lead to the world I live in :)
- Matt G.
12
days inactive
16
days old
25 comments
13 participants
participants (13)
-
Al Kossow -
Arno Griffioen -
Arrigo Triulzi -
Arthur Krewat -
Greg A. Woods -
Heinz Lycklama -
Henry Bent -
John Levine -
Jonathan Gray -
Marc Rochkind -
segaloco -
Warner Losh -
Yeechang Lee