Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-ncis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!tolerant.UUCP!uucp From: uucp@tolerant.UUCP (UNIX-UNIX Cp) Newsgroups: comp.unix.microport Subject: Submission for comp-unix-microport Message-ID: <8901061357.AA25145@handel.TOLERANT> Date: 6 Jan 89 13:57:11 GMT Sender: uuclerk@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Lines: 54 Path: tolerant!voder!pyramid!oliveb!amdahl!pacbell!belltec!dar From: dar@belltec.UUCP (Dimitri Rotow) Newsgroups: comp.unix.microport Subject: Re: Microport, Xenix, Interactive: Which one? Summary: get a second opinion from microsoft and at&T Message-ID: <326@belltec.UUCP> Date: 2 Jan 89 23:15:05 GMT References: <285@longway.TIC.COM> Distribution: usa Organization: Bell Technologies, Fremont, CA Lines: 42 In article , ron@ron.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) writes: > It's a moot point. All the 386 system V ports are essentially the > same one done by Interactive Systems. They are fairly decent > Sys 5 R 3 ports and you can even get TCP for them. > > -Ron Ron - I agree with you that it is a moot point in that there is convergence towards a standard, but you may want to check with AT&T, Intel, and Microsoft about who's did the work. The original UNIX System V/386 Release 3.0 came out from Intel Corporation as the general contractor. Interactive did a lot of work for Intel, especially on the base AT device drivers, and based its own "386/ix" product on the stock Intel/AT&T product. However, the Intel OPO guys up in Oregon and the Intel MCG guys in Santa Clara like to think that the few thousand man hours they spent with AT&T creating the final 3.0 product had a bit to do with the effort. According to AT&T, the device driver content in Release 3.2, the "merged" Xenix/UNIX release is "less than 10% residual intellectual property based on Interactive's contributions in 3.0." In particular, the console/keyboard driver is pretty much the Microsoft Xenix driver (note the presence of multiscreen in console, etc). According to AT&T and Intel, *they* are the ones doing essentially *all* of the work in Release 3.2. They have incorporated stuff from numerous third parties (Microsoft, etc), but it is a very large mistake to think that anyone but AT&T is steering the boat from here on in. Of all the commercial releases, the Intel/AT&T release that we publish is obviously the closest to AT&T's standard (because it *is* AT&T's standard), but Interactive is easily the next closest. Because of the high quality and timeliness of ISC's work it is easy to misidentify their close relationship to the AT&T port in 3.0 with the same identity in 3.2, but that is not the case. Note also that AT&T's own commercial binary UNIX for their 6386 WGS line is different than the official standard AT&T/Intel product licensed through Greensboro. - dimitri rotow