cohen@dasys1.UUCP (David Cohen) (07/14/88)
One of the programmers in our office found a set of IBM's Xenix
shrink-wrapped in a garbage can. When I tried to install it on
an IBM PC AT I was stymied. First, I could not get it to
read the hard disk for bad tracks as instructed in the installation
manual. After deciding to bypass that and access Xenix directly,
I typed fd /xenix.fd and Xenix came up but the screen was all
messed up, flickering like crazy and displaying the correct
information but in 5 or more different places. Since this is
version 1.0, I presume that the programmers at Microsoft
wrote things in a non-standard fashion and since there were no
EGA cards then (I have an IBM EGA card in the AT) the program
can't handle it. Xenix does seem to function though. I have not
proceeded further with the installation since I am not happy about
the program not working when it is supposed to scan the hard disk for
bad tracks nor am I happy about this screen problem -- I do not wish to
risk trashing anything on the hard disk by installing a flaky OS on it
and this seems kind of flaky. I am using DOS 3.1 on the AT, which came
after the 1984 of Xenix 1.0, but still this should not be happening.
Is this something fixable or must I track down a later version? Can I
get a later version from IBM or am I stuck? Thanks in advance for
any advice you can offer.
--
DC (David Cohen)
--
David Cohen {uunet}!mstan\
Big Electric Cat Public Unix {bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!cohen
New York, NY, USA {sun}!hoptoad/ galew@hpsmtc1.HP.COM (Gale Wolfenbarger) (07/15/88)
Believe me you really don't want to know. IBM Xenix 1.0 was a real mess. I got a couple of pages of patches from tech support at Priam and after much grief, I finally got it to boot. Some time later I got some update disks from a local dealer and after that it seemed to stablize. If you are going to use the IBM Xenix, you really want the latest version. I looked into it at the time I was going through this exercise and found that IBM will update version 1.0 if you send in the first page of the manual, an update card (available from your dealer) and $250 per module. This is more than the cost of SCO Xenix. And believe me you would be a lot better off with the SCO version anyway. If you just want to play with it, you can get it up and running. But if you want to use it in production, it would be better to get a current copy of one of the other versions. I haven't tried to run 1.0 with an ega card, but it doen't suprise me that it doesn't work. You may want to contact a local dealer and see if they have the update disks for 1.0. Lots of luck. Gale at HP.
romwa@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Mark Dornfeld) (07/19/88)
In article <5471@dasys1.UUCP> cohen@dasys1.UUCP (David Cohen) writes: >One of the programmers in our office found a set of IBM's Xenix >shrink-wrapped in a garbage can. 'Nuf said. My experience with this version of Xenix taught me that it belonged where the programmer found it. Mark T. Dornfeld Royal Ontario Museum 100 Queens Park Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5S 2C6 mark@utgpu!rom - or - romwa@utgpu
fred@cdin-1.uucp (Fred Rump) (07/23/88)
Was just lucky to send my last five IBM Xenix 2.0's to Germany. They use that stuff over there. I got 100 bucks a complete brand new, shrink-wrapped copy.