[ale] (OT) Fate of SCO

[Geoffrey Myers]

Ken Cochran wrote:
>> Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 09:14:05 -0400
>> From: "Lightner, Jeff" <jlightner at water.com>
>> To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts" <ale at ale.org>
>> Subject: Re: [ale] (OT) Fate of SCO
>>
> [...]
>> Xenix was another SCO Product and we had about 12 sites running that on
>> 286 machine.   Many of the tools one used in UNIX didn't exist for it.
>> Those sites were actually backed up on 5 1/4" floppies.   (I think Xenix
>> either originated at MS or for a while they had a version but never used
>> that.)
> 
> Actually (IIRC), Xenix was itself originally/initially
> a *Microsoft* product (and ran on 8086/80186 hardware),
> and I "think" it might have even pre-dated MS-DOS itself.

I believe it was called Xinu?

> Apparently they wanted to have "Unix" but escape the AT&T
> trademark/license/royalty.  I remember (partially) supporting
> & subsequently replacing a Tandy 6000 and a number of Altos
> systems (all running Xenix) with i386 systems, running SCO
> Xenix, in the early 90s.
> 
> SCO was "born(?)" around that time (as a MS spinoff?) and MS
> spun off Xenix to them (or something like that).  Someone else
> here and/or Wikipedia, etc., might have more accurate history
> of those times.
> 
> Microport and Interactive Systems (who later were acquired or
> changed to SunSoft) figure into that mix too...
> 
> -kc
> 
>> While it is true that early SCO UNIX didn't come with TCP/IP or
>> X-Windows it is also true that back in the early days most people didn't
>> have network cards so couldn't have used it anyway.   This was true of
>> many UNIX flavors (including AT&T) at the time.  It was far more common
>> to have "dumb" serial based terminas and modems.  For remote
> [...]
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of
>> Chris Fowler
>> Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2011 3:48 PM
>> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
>> Subject: Re: [ale] (OT) Fate of SCO
>>
>> On Fri, 2011-04-08 at 11:00 -0400, Lightner, Jeff wrote:
>>> Really sad.  
>>>
>>> In its day I made my living on SCO UNIX and rather liked it.   I
>>> disagree with the comment about it only being used for cash registers.
>>> We had over 2000 sites that were running it as their central systems.
>>> One thing I liked about SCO then was that they were hardware agnostic
>>> (other than requiring x86 based stuff).   Most other UNIX flavors at the
>>> time required you to run on their hardware.
>> Ditto here.  I primarily supported SCO on Compaq equipment.   I learned
>> SCO via immersion.   Every one else ran DOS or Windows but I ran SCO OS5
>> on my desktop.  This made communication difficult since back then there
>> was no OO or Office for SCO.  Even mail programs were not very good.  I
>> used telnet and remote X to run many Linux programs on my SCO desktop.  
>>
>> I also supported a lot of AIX but was not lucky enough to have my own
>> PowerPC desktop.
>>
>> We also supported a lot of Xenix which I believe then was referred to as
>> "Poor Man's UNIX".
>>
>> The benefit to the SCO offerings where, just as Jeff said, no
>> proprietary hardware.  I would say however that you did have to follow
>> their supported hardware booklet.  Most Compaq platforms were supported.
>>
>> I still remember being giddy when I installed my first SCO system from
>> CD!!  No 1/4" tapes, no floppies.  If anyone is interested I may still
>> have tapes in my attic.  Maybe even disks.  I may even have some
>> licenses.
>>
>> The one thing I did learn from SCO was that the commercial UNIX world
>> then was different than Linux.  Many of the packages we use in Linux and
>> consider "standard" were optional and required licenses in SCO.  This
>> included a development environment and even TCP/IP!!!!!  I also have a
>> few Skunkware CDs in my attic.  
>>
>> I bought my first SUN license via their educational discount.  Still
>> cost me $100.
>>
>> I had a mini HP network in my house.  Ran a G30 as a server and had 4
>> 7XX workstations in a spare room.  Each had nice 21" tube monitors.  All
>> running HP-UX 10.XX  I have some of that software in my attic too.
>>
>> Chris
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-- 
Until later, Geoffrey

"I predict future happiness for America if they can prevent
the government from wasting the labors of the people under
the pretense of taking care of them."
- Thomas Jefferson