The History of XENIX

A Failed Future and a Long Life.\r\nIn the November 1980 issue of BYTE, the publication reported that Microsoft signed an agreement with Western Electric for the rights to develop and market UNIX from Bell Laboratories. The version of UNIX from Microsoft was to be specifically for the PDP-11, the Intel 8086, the Zilog Z8000, and the Motorola 68000, and it’s name was XENIX. It’s major selling points were that it was supposed to be available for 16 bit microcomputers and that it would have MS BASIC, FORTRAN, and COBOL which were already widespread.