mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst) (12/28/89)
Well, I've finally gotten annoyed enough with MS-DOS to want to do something about it. I'd like to run Unix on the system, but unfortunately, all the versions of Unix that are being sold these days like a fast 286 or 386, plus a big disk and lots of RAM to run. I only have an 8MHz V20 machine, and I don't have the money to upgrade to a 386. (I can't even buy a 386 system board and just "drop it in", because I have a Zenith Z-148, which uses a special small-footprint case, and doesn't take standard-size motherboards, power supplies, etc.) Well, I heard that IBM once sold a System III Unix for the PC/XT, called PC/IX. This seems like just what I need for a small, single-user Unix system. Since it ran on the XT's 10MB hard disk, it shouldn't take up too much space. Does anybody have a copy of this laying around, with manuals, that they'd be willing to part with? I'm willing to go up to about $50 (plus shipping), but please let me know even if that isn't enough. -- Marc Unangst | "The only limit to our realization of Internet: mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us | tomorrow will be our doubts of today." UUCP : ...!uunet!sharkey!mudos!mju | - Franklin D. Roosevelt Fidonet : Marc Unangst of 1:120/129.0 +--------------------------------------- BBS : The Starship Enterprise, 1200/2400 bps, +1 313 665-2832
davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) (12/29/89)
In article <0.259A52F4@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us> mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst) writes: | Well, I heard that IBM once sold a System III Unix for the PC/XT, called | PC/IX. This seems like just what I need for a small, single-user Unix | system. Since it ran on the XT's 10MB hard disk, it shouldn't take up too | much space. Does anybody have a copy of this laying around, with manuals, | that they'd be willing to part with? I'm willing to go up to about $50 | (plus shipping), but please let me know even if that isn't enough. The only bad thing about PC/ix is that it only allows 54k code and 64k data (and that's the option, 54k total is the default). In spite of that all of the usual stuff runs on it. There is was a product to allow DOS programs to run under it in the DOS partition (can't remember the name). I ran it for some years and managed to get all sorts of net software running, even news. After I went to v1.1 it had about the same failure rate as a bowling ball, and I think I went something like 23 months without an unscheduled reboot. I finally gave up when I really needed a larger disk. It only supported the 10MB or 20MB disks for the AT, as I recall, although there was a way to patch that. There are still 2-3 copies running at work, just because they do the job and require no effort to keep running. If you can get a copy cheap it should be satisfactory in terms of reliability. I have a couple of personal copies around here, and even have one running on an old XT with two 10MB floppies (DOS and PC/ix). If I ever want to set up a machine for just mail access I might use that to do it. Have fun, but before you ask me a lot of questions remember that it has been over three years since I did anything but booted the system. The C compiler, on an AT, shows better benchmark times for most benchmarks than the latest Xenix compiler I have (I *think* 4.85, don't quote me), so the speed is usable if not blinding. -- bill davidsen - sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX davidsen@sixhub.uucp ...!uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen "Getting old is bad, but it beats the hell out of the alternative" -anon