BYTE%mit-mc@sri-unix.UUCP (06/18/83)
From: Roger L. Long <BYTE@mit-mc> WRONG! The company that I work for looked at Microsoft when considering who to port UNIX to our new 68000-based computer. Then we looked elsewhere. First of all, we were not at all impressed by their attitude (you are an OEM aren't you... oh, you are? you can commit to $2,000,000 in sales the first year, can't you... you still want more information? oh, I'll have to have someone call you...) Once we did get in touch with someone who knew something, a process that took a couple of weeks worth of phone calls, we found out that Xenix may be based on Bell Unix, but it was no longer pure Bell. It seems that Microsoft got V7, and made a number of enhancements. This is the basis by which they claim how much more reliable, etc, their Xenix is over Unix. Then System III came out, and as the gentleman I spoke with (a project manager) put it, System III had many of the same enhancements that we'd already made to Xenix, and we liked our code better, so we stuck with it. This is probably the same thing they will do with System V and all the rest. So it might be Unix to you, but it isn't "real" Unix to me. -roger
pdl@root44.UUCP (06/23/83)
But does Xenix still have the grotty V7 terminal driver. For all it's faults, the SIII terminal driver is still a vast improvement. (Also, the `we don't want it, ours is SO much better' argument sounds just a little like sour grapes to this jaundiced ear).