[rescue] Interactive Unix questions

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Thu, Jan 10, 2008 at 08:43:49AM +0100, Walter Belgers wrote:
> Interactive UNIX 2.0:
> 
> These files are images of 5.25" floppies, made by Walter Belgers,
> <walter at giga.nl> of InterActive ("a KODAK company") 386/ix UNIX.

Note that in those days each piece was seperate. For example,
you had to compile something to reconfigure the SunOS kernel,
so make, a C compiler, linker, etc were included, but NOT
with 386 UNIX. (I think a linker was included)

The base package was enough to run a system, not much else.

There were two flavors, 2 user (a workstation with a $60 royalty
to AT&T) and unlimited users (a server with a $250 royalty
to AT&T).

The limit was of shell users and often was implemented in
getty. If you had the TCP/IP package installed (streams, not
sockets), telnet may function without a limit.

X Windows was a seperate item and was not included.

My memory is vague (it was 1991), my ESIX SVR3.2 system came on 
a lot of 5 1/4 floppies, (9-12) because I had the complete
set including TCP/IP, the C compiler, X windows, etc.

All in all, it cost me about $1000. By the time I bought the
computer, software, a 60meg tape drive, manuals etc, the whole
thing cost me about $5k. 

>From what I remember all the different vendors versions of 386 
UNIX were binary compatible, so for example if the libaries were
close enough, you could run programs from ESIX on Interactive
and so on.

One of my consulting customers was dismayed to find that I had
a system at home (ESIX) that was binary compatible with their
multiprocessor pentium NCR system. 

When I came here and met X86 Solaris for the fist time, I found
that binaries from my ESIX system (then gone, but still on tape),
were compatible with it.

By around the .90 version of the Linux Kernel, you could also
run them on Linux, but not vice versa.

Note that Interactive was not a Kodak company for most of it's
life. Kodak bought them to try to get away from Sun. They had a
product that was a "print it yourself" photo kiosk that was
based on a lunchbox Sun and SunOS. Kodak bought Interactive
to try to replace the Sun with PC's. 

Eventualy they gave up and sold Interactive to Sun.

Interactive UNIX became the basis of SunOS 5, aka Solaris 2,
combined with Sun's then developmental versions of a similar
product.

Geoff.

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Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
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