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  • Hmmm ... Downloaded Xenix - But It's *41* Floppies Worth

    From c186282@21:1/5 to All on Wed Jul 16 01:24:50 2025
    Xenix 3.x can be downloaded from archive sites.

    Alas, on checking, it's like *41* floppies worth.
    I've installed stuff that spans a few floppies
    into VirtualBox, but *41* ??? Maybe not worth it.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Charlie Gibbs@21:1/5 to c186282@nnada.net on Wed Jul 16 15:53:13 2025
    On 2025-07-16, c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:

    Xenix 3.x can be downloaded from archive sites.

    Alas, on checking, it's like *41* floppies worth.
    I've installed stuff that spans a few floppies
    into VirtualBox, but *41* ??? Maybe not worth it.

    Ah, takes me back to the days of the Univac System 80,
    where updates were distributed on floppies. 8-inch
    floppies. Lots of them. The pain was reduced somewhat
    if you had the auto-load diskette drive (affectionately
    referred to as the "auto-cruncher"). On the other hand,
    the pain was increased considerably if you had a read error
    on the last disk, since there was no retry capability.

    --
    /~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
    \ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
    X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
    / \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From jayjwa@21:1/5 to All on Wed Jul 16 12:41:37 2025
    I heard that system is buggy as hell. Might best not bother.

    --
    PGP Key ID: 781C A3E2 C6ED 70A6 B356 7AF5 B510 542E D460 5CAE
    "The Internet should always be the Wild West!"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From rbowman@21:1/5 to All on Wed Jul 16 17:32:50 2025
    On Wed, 16 Jul 2025 01:24:50 -0400, c186282 wrote:

    Xenix 3.x can be downloaded from archive sites.

    Alas, on checking, it's like *41* floppies worth.
    I've installed stuff that spans a few floppies into VirtualBox, but *41*
    ??? Maybe not worth it.

    Shades of early Slackware.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Rich@21:1/5 to rbowman on Wed Jul 16 17:54:43 2025
    rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
    On Wed, 16 Jul 2025 01:24:50 -0400, c186282 wrote:

    Xenix 3.x can be downloaded from archive sites.

    Alas, on checking, it's like *41* floppies worth.
    I've installed stuff that spans a few floppies into VirtualBox, but *41*
    ??? Maybe not worth it.

    Shades of early Slackware.

    Yep, I full well remember the 20 floppy shuffle to install early
    versions of Slackware. Not fun, but back then we had no other way.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From rbowman@21:1/5 to Rich on Wed Jul 16 20:11:30 2025
    On Wed, 16 Jul 2025 17:54:43 -0000 (UTC), Rich wrote:

    rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
    On Wed, 16 Jul 2025 01:24:50 -0400, c186282 wrote:

    Xenix 3.x can be downloaded from archive sites.

    Alas, on checking, it's like *41* floppies worth.
    I've installed stuff that spans a few floppies into VirtualBox, but
    *41*
    ??? Maybe not worth it.

    Shades of early Slackware.

    Yep, I full well remember the 20 floppy shuffle to install early
    versions of Slackware. Not fun, but back then we had no other way.

    That was just the starter set. If you wanted gcc, make, and so forth so
    you could actually do something that was about another 20.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From c186282@21:1/5 to rbowman on Thu Jul 17 03:44:08 2025
    On 7/16/25 1:32 PM, rbowman wrote:
    On Wed, 16 Jul 2025 01:24:50 -0400, c186282 wrote:

    Xenix 3.x can be downloaded from archive sites.

    Alas, on checking, it's like *41* floppies worth.
    I've installed stuff that spans a few floppies into VirtualBox, but *41*
    ??? Maybe not worth it.

    Shades of early Slackware.

    Heh heh - YEA !

    For olde-tyme fun I'd LIKE to install Xenix in
    a VM - sure it WILL work - but *41* disks worth ???
    That's like a whole afternoon of fiddly work !

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Anssi Saari@21:1/5 to c186282@nnada.net on Sat Jul 19 09:48:58 2025
    c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> writes:

    For olde-tyme fun I'd LIKE to install Xenix in
    a VM - sure it WILL work - but *41* disks worth ???
    That's like a whole afternoon of fiddly work !

    I ran into some ready to run emulator packages at hampa.ch when looking
    for PC/IX recently. That was easy to start but turns out I don't know
    how to use PC/IX or what's included, other than the base OS, and how to
    use any of that. For sure it's a really limited Unix port since the
    target HW is the original PC or PC/XT.

    They have Xenix 2.1.3 as well, in a similar ready to run package.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Lawrence D'Oliveiro@21:1/5 to Anssi Saari on Sat Jul 19 07:14:12 2025
    On Sat, 19 Jul 2025 09:48:58 +0300, Anssi Saari wrote:

    For sure it's a really limited Unix port since the target HW is the
    original PC or PC/XT.

    Which is still way more powerful than an early-1970s-vintage PDP-11, which
    is what Bell Labs Unix was originally developed on, and for.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Adrian Caspersz@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jul 19 11:41:59 2025
    On 16/07/2025 06:24, c186282 wrote:
    Xenix 3.x can be downloaded from archive sites.

    Alas, on checking, it's like *41* floppies worth.
    I've installed stuff that spans a few floppies
    into VirtualBox, but *41* ??? Maybe not worth it.

    A developer would have thought the same and investigated other ways for installing. Look for network deployment options in the installer.



    Hmmm.... Plenty of memories of installing operating systems with 20+
    floppies.
    Until CDROM drives came about, it was the norm...

    Kids these days.... <shakes head>

    --
    Adrian C

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Charlie Gibbs@21:1/5 to Lawrence D'Oliveiro on Sat Jul 19 17:49:04 2025
    On 2025-07-19, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

    On Sat, 19 Jul 2025 09:48:58 +0300, Anssi Saari wrote:

    For sure it's a really limited Unix port since the target HW is the
    original PC or PC/XT.

    Which is still way more powerful than an early-1970s-vintage PDP-11,
    which is what Bell Labs Unix was originally developed on, and for.

    PDP-7, actually - but a port to the PDP-11 came soon afterwards.

    --
    /~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
    \ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
    X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
    / \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)