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History - When Microsoft pushed Unix on every desk ;-)

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Hi...

Can you remember XENIX?? Did you know that its roots do have a Redmond wing?? To be honest I didn't. But on th 25th of August 1980 Microsoft announced the availibility of XENIX for 16 bit systems (Boy, I was 9 years old that days).

Well, that time the computers tend to be rather small and so the success of XENIX in private households was rather limited. In 1987 Microsoft transferred XENIX to SCO because the development of OS/2 seemed more promising.

There is some more background here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix. On the Microsoft web pages it survived only as a possible file system type flag Winking

Somehow XENIX is still alive in Windows today. There were the Services for Unix (I know they had a very different startpoint but let us be not to deep in details now) and now it is as a part of Windows baked into the DVD.

Also the memories are still alive. For example Landy Wang certainly remembers XENIX (see https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/de/Wang/default.mspx). Being a distinguished engineer as he is certainly is one of the best jobs to have...

CU

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