QEMU 3.1.0 now is able to boot 3.2, but still have issues, better use PCem for now.

All stuff is available at: https://www.autometer.de/unix4fun/coherent/index.html

The C compiler for Xenix is Microsoft C 5.0 386. It’s the same one they used to make Windows NT, and OS/2 2.0. It’s very particular in how it likes to do things, but if you don’t try to get fancy, and stick to K&R or if they told you up front it’s Microsoft C, then it’s easier to deal with. There also was a port of GCC to Xenix, which actually isn’t half bad. Although it was version 1.x, and you had to deal with the COFF encapsulation for later OS types, but in straight Xenix version 3, it’s x.out a strange thing not too unlike a.out.

the boot disks for 3.0 were in the post, if I’m not mistaken. Although just installing a full system in PCemu/86Box is far more rewarding.

You should be glad you did not have a C-compiler. ( SCO Xenix-386) I tried the C compiler, ( it was on the dev disks, not the runtime disks ).

Simple programs would compile fine, but as the size grew, it would at first crash… then later it would corrupt your swap partition, ( even when it was on another drive ), and later it would trash your root file system… We even tried to have 4 HDs, one /, one /usr, one /etc, and one swap, and it got further… but at some point… it would always trash the root…

Then the switch to Microport… dear god… the C-compiler could compile anything… it could fill 500k with error messages.

I had friends that worked for Coherent/Microport/MtXinu.

I would love to play around on a life Coherent 3.0 boot disk…

more info please…

Hi Udo!

HDD-less PCs (or disabling hd controllers) might help on hangups – I created a live floppy _1.44M_, see this: http://vm01.unsoft.hu/~np/coherentlive/multiuser.jpg
The above 486 dec laptop has no installed hdd. I am working on a busybox-like stuff in order to not to waste space.

Thanks for publishing 286 coherent stuff!

Keep in mind it is a 16bit OS, using 16bit integers for the filesystem stuff. So a filesystem cannot be larger than 65536 * 512 bytes.

Better get the 3.0 manual from unix4fun, the 16bit release is quite different from the 32bit releases.

Not that I like emacs that much, but microemcas in combination with the C compiler options is quite powerful. That was outstanding in 1990, that the compiler opens the source right at the error line in microemacs.

The product id’s aren’t magical at all, just mount a floppy disk read-only and look at it’s root directory. And ‘man install’ has all the nasty details of course.

Good article, thanks for writing it up.

After the fact, but I actually like the Citrix multiuser 2.0 feel. It’s a shame the kernel is a pre-release that won’t run any OS/2 32bit stuff.

But at the same time, it’s great to have moved way beyond those days. Now that we live in an era of disposable (sub $100 USD) 64bit machines, it’s hard to imagine such limitations

I did the same, running OS/2 2.0 in 4MB RAM on 486DLC-33. Often I’d edit CONFIG.SYS to set the PROTSHELL= line to run TSHELL, eschewing the Workplace Shell GUI altogether. At the time it worked pretty well, and felt a bit like using DESQview – or a lot like the original OS/2 1.0 task switcher, as I learned many years later.

I was able to run the OS/2 version of Borland C++ 1.0 to build native 32-bit VIO apps in one full-screen window, referring to an INF in another (using a text mode INF viewer) and reading FidoNet mail using Msged in another. Good stuff. 🙂

Such a shame to be so close to being able to use something, but never really able to do so.

I know the feeling, for the longest time I had 32bit envy pretty bad. Id just gotten a 286 part by part, but everywhere I went everyone had at least a 386 or 486, and most of them played solitaire.

Not to mention what a massive PITA re-partitioning was. I was so crazy happy when I finally got a 386sx-16 with a fully populated 4MB motherboard. I could finally run OS/2 2.0 to only find out that 4MB really isn’t enough. And that CGA is really less than satisfactory. I’d helped a re-seller install SCO Xenix 386, and snagged a copy + the license and wow… without any compiler it was absolutely worthless to me.

if you want to do a guest post, all you have to do is email me the material and suffer through me trying to get the formatting right. I don’t know what the botox stuff is about, I guess more eye rolling drama.

email me, or Escargot, you know where I am.

/me z triggered

I am jealous. Botox can do guest posts on neozeed’s turrbosuperr(tm) bloghosting, but(t) I cannot :’^(( sniff-sniff.

Anyway, made a 1.44 coherent 3.0 live image, if anybody would like to get. It was a hell to made and needed several accidentally left secret hints and handwritten remarks found in scanned coherent documents. And pcem, too. Image had been tested on a real-life 486.