17 Jan
1999
17 Jan
'99
3:43 a.m.
John Ruschmeyer wrote:
My two TRS-80 Model 16s were bought when their leases expired and
the companies chose not to do the buy-out. One cost me $300, the
other cost me $250 back in '85 and '86, since the Radio Shack
Computer Center managers didn't want them either -- they had Tandy
6000s. Since I was still working for Radio Shack at the time, I
wasn't too concerned about the licensing issues of upgrading to
the latest version of the Xenix runtime and development software.
> Of course, it's a good feeling to even
have the option.
> Because 10 - 12 years ago, what were your UNIX options, if
> you weren't the government or a university?
>
> 1) You could buy expensive hardware that ran a UNIX variant.
> 2) You bought a workstation from Sun or Apollo - still not cheap.
> 3) If you were lucky, you got one of the few Cromemcos or
> Perkin-Elmer desktops, that ran UNIX. But they weren't
> much less expensive than the Sun, Apollo, etc workstations.
> (Fortune's desktops were in the workstation price range.)
> 4) If you were really lucky, you found a good deal on a used
> PDP from someone with a UNIX license who forgot to wipe the
> disks or tapes - but then you were illegal.
> 5) You bought Minix. Minix was cheap, and you got source, but
> it was really meant to be a teaching tool. It was well done,
> but extremely limited. (Nevertheless, Tanenbaum's _Operating
> Systems Design and Implementation_ is still an excellent book.)
> 6) If you were *really* lucky, you got a good deal on a working
> workstation.
Three more thoughts...
7) You shell out big bug for XENIX or Microport SVR2 on the AT. 8) You buy one of the "fire sale" AT&T
Unix PCs (7300).
That's what I did after my second TRS-80 Model 16 was murdered by
the electric company.
9) You "cheat" with a clone envoronment like
Wendin's PC/Unix or
early MKS toolkits.
The MKS Toolkit worked just fine on the Tandy 2000. Surprised the
Hell out of me, since so much other software was ill-behaved. The
MKS folks properly used the MS-DOS system calls instead of going
straight to the PC hardware.
--
Ward Griffiths <mailto:gram@cnct.com> <http://www.cnct.com/home/gram/>
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