[cap-talk] Capability past and future. Unix inevitability (Xenix example)

[Jed Donnelley]

Nigel Williams wrote:
> Jed wrote:
>   
>> I agree with all the above, but despite the fragmentation and the
>> concerns, there really was no alternative.  All the major vendors
>> (except of course Microsoft) were supplying versions of Unix.
>>     
>
> (a reminder)
>
> even Microsoft supplied a version of UNIX via Xenix
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix), circa 1979 through to 1987
> (internally until 1992) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix
>
> One reason we never used Xenix at the time was it was considered too
> commercial, too shrinked-wrapped, and missed out on all the "benefits"
> of the BSD community.
>
> nigwil
>   
I'd completely forgotten about Xenix.  I never used it and only heard
about it peripherally.  The fact that it was the base for SCO Unix seems 
an odd
twist.  Also the "Trusted Xenix" seems strange from today's viewpoint,
but of course made sense at the time.

I think the above helps to make my case about Unix inevitability even more
strongly.  Unix (in whatever form) was what was out there.  It was what
had an application suite to go with it (from AT&T and BSD) so it wasn't
just a bare OS, but an OS that you could do development on.  An OS
that if you got up you could use for something more than just research.

1979 - amazing.  I see the copyright notice, 1980-1989 Microsoft Corp. on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Xenix_Screensnap.PNG

I wasn't even aware of that happening in 1979.  In hind sight I should
have been...  There was of course more work going on even before
that with 1BSD in 1977 and 2BSD in 1978 (e.g. from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD

which includes a history that seems a well written overview to me, e.g
the simplified:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Unix_history-simple.svg

, which interestingly doesn't include Xenix).  Thanks Nigel!

--Jed  http://www.webstart.com/jed/
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