Re:A bit of XENIX history (2014)
by bsharitt on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @12:25PM
(#26727167)
I know the model 16 had a 68k, but it just seems bizarre that a version of Unix ran on a TRS-80.
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It's not so crazy when you consider the specs of the machines Unix was developed on. A PDP-11/20 comes with 24k of memory (16k 18bit words) and 500k of drive space and was shared between an entire department full of people.
The reason Unix exists is because they couldn't afford a machine big enough to run Multics.
An 11/20 didn't give a great Unix experience though. You needed an 11/45 with a 80MB drive to support multiple users.
>The reason Unix exists is because they couldn't afford a machine big enough to run Multics.
So true, just imagine a world where multics and some unix spice would be the to-go system....like linux is today.
The model 16 was so much bigger and more powerful than the original TRS-80 that it included an entire original TRS-80, whose only job was to operate the keyboard and serial port.
Seriously 100x as much CPU power
The earlier Model II was the first TSR-80 with Xenix.