Venix

Venix
Developer VenturCom
OS family Unix System III/System V
Working state Historic
Initial release ?
Latest release 4.2.1 / 1994
Available in English
Platforms DEC PRO-350
(PDP-11 compatible),
DEC Rainbow 100,
IBM PC
Default user interface X Window System, Motif, OpenLook

Venix was a version of the Unix operating system for low-end computers, developed by VenturCom, a "company that specialises in the skinniest implementations of Unix".[1]

A working version of Venix for the IBM PC XT was demoed at Comdex in May 1983. It was based on Version 7 Unix with some enhancements from BSD (notably vi) and custom inter-process communication mechanisms.[2] In September 1984, Venix/86 Encore was released; it supported a number of early PC-compatibles, including the AT&T 6300, the Zenith 150, the (first) NCR PC, and the Texas Instruments Professional PC.[3]

Venix 2.0, based on System III, ran on the DEC PRO-350 microcomputer (Venix/PRO), the DEC Rainbow 100 (Venix/86R) as well as PCs (Venix/86 and /286). It was released in 1984. From version 3.0, Venix was based on System V. A real-time version based in System V.3.2 was released for the 386 in 1990.[1]

The last version Venix 4.2.1 based on UNIX System V Release 4.2 (UnixWare) was released in 1994. The workstation system included the real-time operating system, NFS and TCP/IP networking, X, OpenLook and Motif GUIs and the Veritas journaling File System (vxfs). A development system included additionally an ANSI C compiler, a library of real-time functions, GUI development software, real-time development utilities, and selected industrial I/O device drivers.

Reception

PC Magazine in 1984 found Venix functional, despite some bugs in the initial versions. Its use of the BIOS for accessing devices made it more portable than its competitor PC/IX, but slowed down its display processing; the disk access speed was found to be similar.[2] BYTE stated that Venix on the DEC Professional and IBM PC "performed adequately", but criticized its limit on background processeses. The magazine noted, however, that Venix on the PC outperformed the same operating system on the Professional or PDP-11/23.[4]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 VenturCom ships real-time Venix/386. Computer Business Review, 1 February 1990. Retrieved 23 March, 2013.
  2. 1 2 Mark S. Zachmann (12 June 1984). "A Venerable UNIX". PC Magazine: 246–248. ISSN 0888-8507.
  3. ↑ "Enhanced Venix/86 out". Computerworld: 76. 17 September 1984. ISSN 0010-4841.
  4. ↑ Hinnant, David F. (Aug 1984). "Benchmarking UNIX Systems". BYTE. pp. 132–135, 400–409. Retrieved 23 February 2016.

Further reading

External links


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