[GTALUG] Microsoft says its new Linux-based OS will secure IoT devices for a decade - TechRepublic

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: William Porquet via talk <talk at gtalug.org>

| Didn't Microsoft own Xenix eventually?

MS owned Xenix (in a sense) from the start.  Of course most of the
code was "owned" by ATT.

I have a NABU 1600 running close-to-original Xenix.  It was a port of 7th
Edition Unix, compiled by an ATT C compiler adjusted to generate small
model 8086 code.  The original target of the port was some ALTOS
business computer.

The next version of Xenix never made it to my box (the box maker ran
into financial difficulties) but HCR (the subcontractor) had started.
It was based around Microsoft's own C compiler an supported large
model 8086 code (or at least some model better than small).

At that time, Microsoft was the master.  SCO (not exactly the Bad One,
but that's another story) and HCR were the only sublicensees.  So,
when I bought my Xenix license, I bought it from SCO.

Eventually Microsoft decided, for reasons unknown to me, that Xenix
wasn't their future.  They made SCO and HCR do all the actual work
from then on.  SCO eventually bought HCR.

Xenix became its own world.  It didn't track ATT's latest and greatest
releases (eg. System V etc.).  But they did produce a separate line
that was on that stream.

For some years, Xenix was the dominant low-end UNIX.  I think that it
must have been a good business.  Certainly SCO was a powerhouse in the
UNIX world.

(I leave out lots of history.  I worked for HCR *after* I bought the
Xenix license.  But not on Xenix.)