Rebooting A Retro PDP-11 Workstation - and Its Classic 'Venix' UNIX (blogspot.com)
- Reference: 0176792807
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/22/1927247/rebooting-a-retro-pdp-11-workstation---and-its-classic-venix-unix
- Source link: https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2025/03/more-pro-for-dec-professional-380.html
But more importantly, "It runs PRO/VENIX, the only official DEC Unix option for the Pros."
> In that specific market it was almost certainly the earliest such licensed Unix (in 1983) and primarily competed against XENIX, Microsoft's dominant "small Unix," which first emerged for XT-class systems as SCO XENIX in 1984. You'd wonder how rogue processes could be prevented from stomping on each other in such systems when neither the Intel 8086/8088 nor the IBM PC nor the PC/XT had a [3]memory management unit , and the answer was not to try and just hope for the best. It was for this reason that IBM's own Unix variant PC/IX, developed by Interactive Systems Corporation under contract as their intended AT&T killer, was multitasking but single-user since in such an architecture there could be no meaningful security guarantees...
>
> One of Venix's interesting little idiosyncrasies, seen in all three Pro versions, was the SUPER> prompt when you've logged on as root (there is also a MAINT> prompt when you're single-user...
>
> Although Bill Gates had been their biggest nemesis early on, most of the little Unices that flourished in the 1980s and early 90s met their collective demise at the hands of another man: Linus Torvalds. The proliferation of free Unix alternatives like Linux on commodity PC hardware caused the bottom to fall out of the commercial Unix market.
The blogger even found a 1989 log for the computer's one and only guest login session — which seems to consist entirely of someone named tom trying to exit vi .
But the most touching part of the article comes when the author discovers a file named /thankyou that they're certain didn't come with the original Venix. It's an ASCII drawing of a smiling face, under the words "THANK YOU FOR RESCUING ME".
"It's among the last files created on the system before it came into my possession..."
It's all a fun look back to a time when advances in semiconductor density meant microcomputers could do nearly as much as the more expensive minicomputers (while taking up less space) — leaving corporations pondering the new world that was coming:
> As far back as 1974, an internal skunkworks unit had presented management with two small systems prototypes described as a PDP-8 in a VT50 terminal and a portable PDP-11 chassis.
>
> Engineers were intrigued but sales staff felt these smaller versions would cut into their traditional product lines, and [DEC president Ken] Olsen duly cancelled the project, famously observing no one would want a computer in their home.
[1] https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2025/03/more-pro-for-dec-professional-380.html
[2] https://www.slashdot.org/~AndrewZX
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_management_unit
Such memories (Score:3)
>"It runs PRO/VENIX, the only official DEC Unix option for the Pros. In that specific market it was almost certainly the earliest such licensed Unix (in 1983) and primarily competed against XENIX, Microsoft's dominant "small Unix," which first emerged for XT-class systems as SCO XENIX in 1984"
That was just a little before my *ix dive. I was still into Microware's OS-9 at home, which was similar in many ways. But soon after, at work in '89, was Altos Xenix running on 986T systems (the machines I first managed), but then replaced with a bigger machine, Altos 2000 and Altos Unix, later added a single Sun machine running Solaris Unix, then no more Altos and moved on to standard X86 server stuff and SCO OpenServer (Unix). Then at home, somewhere in that timeline, I got ahold of a legit Interactive Unix license/media at a swap meet but had to download X11 from a local college campus to a QIC tape because it was not included and just too big for a modem (what a blast, and it worked really well; yes, I had a QIC drive in my home tower machine). Then came Linux at home with a zillion floppies. And, eventually, Linux at work. And it has been so ever since.
Xenix (Score:4, Interesting)
started as a modified Unix V6 or V7 on a PDP-11, and from that version Microsoft created various ports to microcomputers, notably some with Motorola 68000, Zilog Z8000, Natsemi NS16032 and even i8086 (certain non-PC compatible machines from Altos and Intel). The first Xenix for PCs was made by SCO for the PC/XT in 1983 (or 1984), but it was already based on Unix System III. My point is, Xenix started years before it got PC support, and it started on... a PDP-11.
Tom here (Score:5, Funny)
When I left the organization, I saved that PDP-11 image in an emulator VM, which I'm running on my laptop now.
I'm still trying to exit that vi session.
Re: (Score:2)
> I'm still trying to exit that vi session.
I have to admit (somewhat sheepishly)... I've found myself in that situation once or twice.
Re: (Score:3)
Give Me VMS or Give Me Death!
My memory may be missing a few bits, but... (Score:2)
...I remember running Unix on a PDP-11 at Princeton U in 1974-78. I'm pretty sure that the original Bell Labs Unix was developed on the PDP-11 by Brian Kernighan, Ken Thompson & Dennis Ritchie. They may have been hanging out at Princeton at the time.
Again, my memory is a few bits short on the details.
Perhaps this wasn't an official "DEC Unix" as that hadn't been invented yet. Also remember running RT-11 and RSTS on the PDP-11.
Those were the days of great mini computers!
Much of Our Computers is from DEC's Doing (Score:2)
Digital Equipment Corporation bought us to our computing place. Unix was written on DEC computers. PDPs inspired a lot of computers, such as the MC 68000 seen in the first Macs, all the way up to and beyond the SnapDragons seen in PDAs. DEC's VAX brought virtual memory, and also brought us memory-mapped hardware. It is a tragedy that there was no way forward--for a company that brought us so much. A nod for DEC.
SCO Xenix (Score:2)
I’m afraid your dates for SCO Xenix are a bit off as I was a certified Admin for SCO Xenix circa 1983 and it he been available in the Uk for at least a year by then having been made available primarily as a consequence of the Intel 286 processor being released (1982) which supported protected mode and therefore could effectively run a kernel with effective segmentation of he kernel from user space
Re: SCO Xenix (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure that SCO Xenix from 1983 supported the 8088-based IBM PC/XT (there are extant manuals for it), and the first Xenix that used the 80286 protection features (and correspondingly, required the 80286) was released in 1984.