Microsoft's forgotten UNIX operating system - Whatever happened to Xenix?

[Music] ladies and gentlemen introducing Microsoft your go-to company for Unix forget those silly single tasking single user operating systems like CPM and basic forget Bonkers graphical user interfaces that cost bazillions of dollars like the Xerox star wait just a minute well we show you its power of Ls pipelines Man pages and more but not less how much would you pay for a Unix based multitasking operating system that will Pioneer the way that we work on Intel microcomputers five thousand dollars ten thousand dollars no it's just 995 dollars it's zenix order today from Microsoft yep you heard me right Microsoft made a version of Unix that was available for personal computers and they made it before they even made MS-DOS and windows what's more for a while Microsoft was the world's largest reseller of Unix in the world strap n because today you're going to find out how close we got to a world where Unix could have been on everyone's desktop instead of Windows or Mac OS in this video we'll take a look at the origins of xenix its features and how and why it was sold to the Santa Cruz operation as well as xenix's demise I'll also wax lyrical for a while about what could have been in a world where xenix succeeded back in 1969 a couple of computer scientists here at Bell Labs started to develop some programs they needed for their own use what Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie started developing then has evolved into the Unix operating system which by now is widely used around the world at T is no newcomer to computers although at T previously was barred from selling computers in the Open Marketplace its research and development arm at T Bell Laboratories has always been at the Leading Edge of computer technology as computers have grown in power and complexity at T has developed new computer software to make the machines more productive The Versatile Unix operating system developed at Bell labs in 1969 now is fast becoming the computer industry standard of the 1980s with its entry into the computer business a t the company that largely created today's computer technology has become a major Force shaping its future in the late 1970s the Unix operating system was gaining popularity in academic and research circles at the same time Microsoft was bought a fledgling company of about four years old with the dockiest of docks at the helm Bill Gates and Paul Allen despite their nerdy nature Microsoft had recently become successful selling their versions of programming languages such as basic and Fortran although some could argue that you could do simple operating system type functions with basic and Fortran Microsoft had not yet developed any operating system software at that time Unix was a very popular operating system but was expensive and ran only on Mainframe or mini computers recognizing the potential demand for a unix-like operating system on the emerging world of personal computers Microsoft decided to create its own version of Unix with Microsoft being a relatively small player in the Computing industry they believe that developing a Unix based operating system allowed the company to establish itself as a credible and Innovative software vendor so in 1978 Microsoft entered into a joint venture relationship with atnt to create a version of Unix that would run on 8-bit and 16-bit microprocessors used in early personal computers by acquiring the rights to Unix from atnt Microsoft was able to leverage the existing code base and development efforts of atnt and its Partners which helped to accelerate the development of the operating system many years later at the 1996 Unix Expo Microsoft's chairman Bill Gates said Microsoft had for a long time the world's highest volume at T Unix license this new operating system was to be called zenix and so it was Microsoft's version of Unix would become popular with businesses particularly those who couldn't afford to buy expensive Mainframe or mini computers the project was challenging as the hardware available at a time was not as powerful as its larger contemporary computers especially as there were limitations on the amount of memory and storage that could be used despite the challenges involved Microsoft was able to develop xenix for microcomputers building the system in a tiny memory and storage footprint try asking Microsoft to do that today cenix was able to offer a powerful Unix derivative to businesses at a fraction of the cost of Mainframe equivalents it featured proper multi-user and multitasking capabilities at a time before its single tasking single user brother MS-DOS wasn't even a twinkle in Bill Gates eye on the 25th of August Microsoft announced xenix to the world and shipped its first version to Central data Corporation in 1981. in the years that followed later versions such as xenix 286 and the imaginatively titled xenix 386 ran on more powerful processors and offered more features and better performance very quickly xenix became popular with businesses but particularly those in the financial and banking Industries Phoenix was a multi-user operating system that could run on personal computers with Intel processors as well as some other processors especially in the early days before Intel processors were the star of the show as you can see in this graphic zenix was on platforms such as the pdp-11 the Apple Lisa the sun 2 system Intel system 86 machines the Altos 8600 Acorn systems running the national semiconductor ns16032 processors as well as tandy's model 16 which was on the Motorola 6 to 8000 CPU with TRS xenix xenix supported many of the same features as its core at T Unix base such as command line interface file management and the ability to run multiple programs at the same time however zenix had some unique features as well for example it had a virtual memory system that allowed programs to use more memory than was physically available in the computer this made it easier for businesses to run multiple programs at the same time later on in its life zenix Incorporated elements from version 4.2 of the Berkeley systems distribution of Unix BSD notably the vi or VI text editor and is supporting libraries term cap and curses its kernel featured some original Extensions by Microsoft themselves notably file walking and semi-force as well as a visual shell for menu driven operation instead of the traditional Unix shell it also included a limited form of local networking overseas video lines rs232 ports it was possible through the mecnet software which supported file transfer and electronic mail although Unix to Unix copy protocol uucp was still used for networking via modems the cost of xenix varied depending on the version and Licensing options that were selected in the early days of zenix Microsoft offered several different versions of the operating system each with different pricing and Licensing options for example xenix 3.0 which was released in 1983 was priced at a fairly reasonable 995 dollars per copy for a single user license whilst the 5 user license would cost 2 495 that was a highly competitive offering compared to at T's Unix which was selling for at least ten thousand dollars at the time as xenix evolved and was rebranded somewhat as Microsoft's Unix operating system pricing and Licensing options changed Microsoft system v386 released 2.2 which was released in 1989 was priced at 1995 for a single user license whilst the 10 user license cost 9995. for larger organizations Microsoft also offered site licensing options for xenix which allowed for an unlimited number of users to access the operating system for a flat fee these site licensing options could be customized to meet the specific needs of the organization and were priced accordingly in reality though back in those days at Microsoft they very rarely had a stringent price book and were known to just make up their pricing the main thing is though that it was generally considered to be an affordable option for small and medium-sized businesses compared with the contemporaries such as at T Unix as an example Unix system V or 5 which was released in 1983 the license was twenty five thousand dollars plus royalties of one thousand dollars per system and that was on the OEM license it hurts me a little bit to see but Microsoft actually made a robust and reliable operating system in xenix and it was well suited for the needs of the small and medium-sized businesses at the time however compared to other contemporary operating systems of the time it had a few shortcomings one of the main limitations of xenix was the lack of compatibility with other Unix based operating systems unlike other Unix V8s for most of its life zenix did not adhere to standard Unix specifications which could make it a bit difficult to Port applications between different Unix systems this lack of compatibility made it challenging for businesses to integrate zenix based systems with other Unix based systems another limitation of xenix was the lack of support for graphical user interfaces at the time the use of gui's or graphical user interfaces was becoming more popular and many contemporary operating systems such as the Apple Macintosh the leesa and later Microsoft Windows were designed to be more user-friendly by incorporating gui's xenix on the other hand was a text-based system making it appear less accessible to those non-technical users as the 80s wore on xenix did eventually support the X windowing system which was the de facto Unix graphical windowing system commonly known as X11 which had been developed in about June of 1984 however X11 support was not available in early versions of zenix and was only adopted later with xenix system v386 released 2.2 which was released in 1989. in fact by the time X11 support had been added to ZX other operating systems such as Sonos BSD and later Linux had already gained significant market share in the Unix World which limited the impact the X11 support had on xenix's overall success however arguably the biggest shortcoming with the development of xenix was that it was largely focused on supporting the needs of businesses which meant that it did not have the same level of support for Consumer orientated applications and yes games that other operating systems such as dos and later Windows had this made it less attractive to home users and limited its potential Market beyond the business sector it's all about the apps so now you've heard a bit about what zenix was it's interesting to let the mind wander and ask what would the world have looked like if Microsoft had continued to develop xenix instead of going down that Dawson Windows route one possible outcome is that xenix could have continued to grow in popularity and become the dominant operating system for personal computers instead of Dawson later Windows it was only with the Advent of Windows 95 that Microsoft really start getting close to multitasking and even then a fully preemptive multitasking multi-user operating system kind of like Unix well that wasn't available until Windows NT came along both doors and windows had some level of networking support fairly earlier on but it almost always was a via shim and it was pretty archaic multiple users wasn't really a thing at all in MS-DOS and again it wasn't properly implemented in Windows until about Windows and T but almost from the start xenix could be described as a multitasking multi-user operating system and very early it supported networking of sorts if xenix had become the dominant operating system it might have led to a different set of applications and services being developed with a greater emphasis on distributed computing and networking way ahead of when it became the norm every household has a multi-user multitasking networking operating system in it today even in your pocket with your smartphone but it really took until probably around the late 90s before that sort of thing was becoming commonplace imagine if you had all that power on your own PC back in the 80s the fact is that was a reality it just didn't filter down to the home or the small PC market we all had dos and windows and often didn't think to look outside of what came pre-installed with our PC if xenix had become the de facto operating system for the PC mark Market it is likely that IBM wouldn't have asked Microsoft to make OS 2 with them and so would have gone somewhere else maybe IBM would have had even less Success With os2 Or maybe it would have triumphed I guess we'll never know about that it's also possible that Linux might have not made as much of a foothold as it did after all Linux was built out of the frustration lennis's new 386 computer came with MS-DOS pre-installed and he wasn't satisfied at how little dos utilized to power off the 386 if his 3d6 had come with zenix pre-installed would he even have had the thought to write his own Unix the mind boggles with the alternative universe that we might have lived in the Santa Cruz operation usually known as school was coincidentally established in 1979. it was a software company that was focused on creating unix-based operating systems for businesses as early as 1982 Microsoft who at the time had between 25 and 50 employees and scope who had a roughly about the same number of employees forged a joint agreement for development and Technology exchange with the two companies Engineers working together on improvements to zenix indeed score's first shrink wrapped product was a copy of xenix that operated on Apple's new Lisa computer in 1984 Microsoft and school jointly announced that score had been provided right to distribute xenix within the United States branded as goes Enix the first release of scozenix system 5 was in 1985 for the IBM PC XT and compatibles as well as an enhanced version for the then u286 based IBM pc80 the skull branded version had some major enhancements over the zenix core systems such as local area networking and multi-user support despite a deal to buy between 11 and 16 percent of school by Microsoft in February of 1989 industry Skeptics viewed Microsoft's level of commitment to xenix with some suspicion from as early as the mid-1980s it later became clear that Microsoft was losing interest in xenix from their own business perspective there were a number of reasons for Microsoft's waning interest the first reason was due in part to the breakup of the Bell System in 1982 prior to this atnt had not been able to sell Unix in a traditional sense according to the Wikipedia article on xenix Microsoft believed that it could no longer compete with unix's developers as Microsoft were having to pay royalties to ATT and Licensing this was perhaps not something that they thought the future of Microsoft was for licensing their own products was far more lucrative than re-licensing someone else's after all secondly before the mid-1980s MS-DOS was rapidly taking off as a product due in part to the fact that it shipped with almost every single PC despite dos not being nearly as powerful as xenix dos was good enough for most businesses of the time Microsoft was also investing much of their time in a new graphical operating system Windows which was launched in late 1985. Bill Gates believed that the graphical user interface for a personal computer was the future and evidence could be found in this statement as early as 1981 when Bill Gates ordered the creation of interface manager which eventually became the MS-DOS executive part of Windows 1.0 by the early 1990s windows by then version 3.1 was out and had become Microsoft's Flagship product the third factor that contributed Microsoft's decision to sell xenix was that the Unix market was becoming increasingly crowded the emergence of other Unix based operating systems such as Sun Solaris had gained popularity amongst businesses and Microsoft found it harder to compete with them finally the legal challenges that school faced over the ownership of the Unix operating system also played a role in Microsoft's decision to sell xenix school had decided to buy the rights to Unix from Novell who in turn had bought the original rights from the Unix system Laboratories in 1993. this became a three-way deal with HP being in the mix too information Week Magazine said in 1995 that the computer industry was not so sure that skull could handle being the primary Unix Shepherd and that the deal was a complicated plan and that was confusing from the start some of these issues were LED well into the 2000s with the legal battles between the newly formed School group and Novell the uncertainty and controversy surrounding Unix ownership may have made it less attractive to Microsoft to continue investing in zenix despite all of these aspects staff at Microsoft were said to be using xenix internally as late as 1988 and their internal email system was running on a 68 000 based zenix server well into the mid-1990s there were obviously still a few folks that were loyal to xenix Until the End however in 1995 Microsoft decided to sell the rights of xenix to score exclusively after acquiring xenix School continue to develop and improve the operating system releasing several versions including score zenix 386 and score open server foreign School eventually sold its business to Linux company Caldera in the year 2000 due to earnings shortfalls in 2002 confusingly Caldera renamed themselves the score group the school group created some legal challenges in the early 2000s over ownership of the Unix operating system in a strange twist of fate School group claimed that Linux a popular open source operating system had infringed on its Unix copyrights this led to a series of lawsuits between school and several companies including IBM and Novell with legal disputes going on over 18 years that topic is worth a whole video on its own so I won't dwell on it suffice it to say it didn't end that well for school in 2007 School group filed for bankruptcy and its Unix related assets were sold to another company as a result the zenix operating system is no longer produced today so in conclusion xenix was a significant operating system that paved the way for the development of modern operating systems despite it hardly being known about today Microsoft's acquisition of the license for xenix from at T helped make it more widely available to businesses although zinix is no longer in use today its Legacy continues to live on as many of the features that were first introduced in xenix can be found in modern operating systems such as Linux and Mac OS that almost wraps up this video I'd just like to say a huge thanks to my lovely Patron sponsors and you can see their names running up the screen now if you'd like to help out this channel make more original content then please head over to patreon.com forward slash ask geek lab or just press the join button here on YouTube if you'd like to be reminded of more of my videos then press the Subscribe button and change the notification Bell to all thank you very much for watching this video and I'll see you in the next one until next time be excellent to each other

Channel: Al's Geek Lab

Views: 236,368

Keywords: unix, retro computing, xenix, xenix 286, unix command, microsoft, ibm, novell, sco, sco group, santa cruz operation, linux, SCO Xenix, Steve Ballmer, Paul Allen, Bill Gates, IBM PC, IBM XT, HP, legal battle with Novell, Windows, Microsoft Windows, Windows 3.1, Microsoft Xenix, xenix os, BSD UNIX, AT&T, Bell Labs, Dennis Ritchie, Bryan Kernighan, vi, vim, MS-DOS

Id: YUxaLP6bI00

Length: 22min 20sec (1340 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 09 2023