[Novalug] Student Computer

Jon LaBadie novalugml@jgcomp.com
Mon Apr 20 11:05:01 EDT 2009


On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 10:48:50AM -0400, Mackenzie Morgan wrote:
> On Monday 20 April 2009 10:37:44 am Theodore Ruegsegger wrote:
> > Jon wrote:
> > > Its not that recent.  It was around 1985, when MicroSoft was selling
> > > more UNIX each year than everyone else in the world combined, that
> > 
> > Am I the only reader who said "Huh?" at this? Or am I missing some
> > clever humor? Or is it really possible that, even though I was alive
> > and educated and even a fledgling Unix user in 1985, I completely
> > missed this?
> 
> I think he's referring to Xenix.

Right.  Microsoft purchased redistribution rights to UNIX System III
and rebadged it Xenix.  It was primarily sold on Radio Shack/Tandy
computers.  For a three year period more that 50% of all new UNIX
licenses were Xenix.

A negative historical note is that Microsoft used a third party
to support their licensed OS.  That was the Santa Cruz Operation,
now called SCO.  Later, when M$ decided to abandon UNIX, SCO
purchased the rights to Xenix (still System III based).  Then,
several years later, Novell sold most of the UNIX rights it had
purchased to SCO.  As you likely know, SCO tried to sue IBM and
others over UNIX code infringement in Linux.

-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                  jon@jgcomp.com
 JG Computing
 12027 Creekbend Drive		(703) 787-0884
 Reston, VA  20194		(703) 787-0922 (fax)



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