Xenix: Difference between revisions

[[Bell Labs]], the developer of Unix, was part of the regulated [[Bell System]] and could not sell Unix directly to most end users (academic and research institutions excepted); it could, however, license it to software vendors who would then resell it to end users (or their own resellers), combined with their own added features.

Microsoft, which expected that Unix would be its operating system of the future when personal computers became powerful enough,{{r|letwin19950817}} purchased a license for [[Version 7 Unix]] from AT&T in 1978,<ref>{{cite book |author-first=Steve D. |author-last=Pate |title=Unix Internals: A Practical Approach |date=1996 |publisher=[[Addison Wesley Professional]] |isbn=978-0-201-87721-2 |quote="Microsoft licensed Seventh Edition Unix from AT&T in 1978 to produce the Xenix operating system initially for the PDP-11." |page=9}}</ref> and announced on August 25, 1980, that it would make the software available for the [[16-bit]] microcomputer market.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/History/The-History-of-Microsoft-1980|title=The History of Microsoft - 1980}}</ref> Because Microsoft was not able to license the "Unix" name itself,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.computerhope.com/unix/xenix.htm |title=Xenix variant information |date=February 26, 2010 |quote=In the late 1970s
Microsoft licensed Unix source code from AT&T, which at the time was not licensing the name Unix. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131219145551/http://www.computerhope.com/unix/xenix.htm |archive-date=December 19, 2013}}</ref> the company gave it an original name.

In 1981, Microsoft said the first version of Xenix was "very close to the original Unix version 7 source" on the [[PDP-11]], and later versions were to incorporate its own fixes and improvements. The company stated that it intended to port the operating system to the [[Zilog Z8000]] series, Digital [[LSI-11]], [[Intel 8086]] and [[80286]], [[Motorola 68000]], and possibly "numerous other processors", and provide Microsoft's "full line of system software products", including [[Microsoft BASIC|BASIC]] and other languages.{{r|greenberg198106}}

The first port was for the Z8001 16-bit processor: the first customer ship was January 1981 for Central Data Corporation of Illinois,<ref name="dir83"/>{{rp|4}} followed in March 1981 by Paradyne Corporation's [[Z8001]] product.<ref name="dir83"/>{{rp|14}}