Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!bbn!rochester!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!hedrick From: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) Newsgroups: comp.unix.microport Subject: Re: can you run unix on Tandy 1000 SX's? Message-ID: Date: 7 Apr 88 20:12:36 GMT References: <176@vader.UUCP> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 15 Keywords: tandy 8088 To: bcs212@vader.UUCP I think the original IBM Unix, probably a Xenix version, ran on XT's. (I certainly recall seeing it run on a machine here long before there were 286's, so it had to have.) Mark Williams software has a V7 derivative that they call Coherent. I don't know much about it, but I do know that it runs on the older processors (indeed I think it won't run on a 286). The reason Uport won't run on an XT is that it uses protected mode. This exists only on the 286 and 386. It's impossible to make a real multiprocess OS without using that feature, so Unix is impossible on an XT. So, you say, how about the two things I just listed? They use sort of smoke and mirrors. As far as I know, they work, but any process can walk all over any other's memory if they do the wrong thing with the pointer registers.. In my opinion, this means that the processes are not in any normal sense separate processes. Since Unix by definition has multiple processes, this means that they aren't Unix. But they may look, act, and smell enough like Unix to be useful.