![[tiny]](billg68.jpg)
Bill and Paul in 1968 [pic source][Up: timeline] [Robot Wisdom home page]
1955: 28Oct (Fri, 9pm): William Henry 'Trey' (Trish?! cite) Gates III born in Seattle (mother Mary Maxwell: cite) [pix&info]
1957? Tim Paterson born [cite] [pic]
BillG public elementary school
1967: 12yo BillG attends private Lakeside School
1968: discovers programming (BASIC via teletype on GE Mark II); BASIC, FORTRAN, LISP and PDP10-machine language [cite]
Bill and Paul in 1968 [pic source]
1970? Gates, Paul Allen, Ric Weiland [gay activist] and Kent Evans trade debugging for computer time at Computer Center Corporation (C-Cubed) [cite]
1970: 18Nov: Information Sciences Inc (ISI) of Portland OR orders COBOL payroll program from 'Lakeside Programming Group' [cite]
1972 [timeline]
1972: spring: Lakeside School pays LPG $4200 for scheduling system [cite] [date]
1972: 30yo Gary Kildall gets PhD in compsci from U of Washington [cite]
1972: Kildall starts experimenting with $25 4004, consulting for Intel [cite]
1972: May: 17yo Kent Evans killed in hiking accident [controversy]
1972: autumn: Gates, Allen, and Paul Gilbert build 8008 system [cite] [date] Allen writes 8008 simulator for IBM 360
1972: Gates works for TRW, founds Traf-O-Data [cite] [interview]
1973 [timeline]
1973: BillG and Steve Ballmer enter Harvard
1973: autumn: Gates studies economics at Harvard [cite]
no-date: Tim Paterson learns Fortran and 7400 TTL-chip in high school [cite]
1973: Shugart (later Seagate) introduces 8" floppy drive [cite] Kildall will acquire one and write CP/M to control it
1973: Dec: 1st production run of Intel 8080 [cite] (Kildall gets one of these, too)
1974 [timeline]
1974? AT&T decides to supply Unix-source free to academia [cite]
1974: 1st CP/M (Control Program/Monitor) from Kildall's MAA (Microcomputer Applications Associates) for 8080 family [cite] [cite] [manuals] [source] [bkgd]
commands copied from DEC's RT-11?[cite]
1974: autumn: Allen moves to Boston to work at Honeywell [cite]
1975 [timeline]
1975: 01Jan: MITS Altair 8800 on cover of Popular Electronics inspiring Allen and Gates to develop BASIC language [.doc] [pic]
Allen converts 8008 simulator to 8080 [cite] Monte Davidoff writes floating point routines
1975: 01Feb: Gates and Allen complete BASIC and sell it to MITS of Albuquerque [.doc]
1975: 01Apr: Allen joins MITS as director of software [.doc] BillG joins soon after
1975: 07Apr: "Altair BASIC: Up and Running" headline of 1st issue of MITS Computer Notes [.doc]
1975: 01Jul: BASIC ships as version 2.0 in both 4K and 8K editions [.doc]
no-date: cold-boot bug in x80 and 6502 Basics not fixed until 1983? [cite]
"type SPACE SPACE SPACE SINGLE-QUOTE ENTER two times"
1975: 22Jul: Allen and Gates sign Basic licensing agreement with MITS ($3000 plus royalty per copy) [cite] (Micro-Soft name not yet chosen)
1975: Oct: Allen creates 6800 simulator and Ric Weiland ports Basic for Altair 680 [cite]
1975: 29Nov: Gates uses the name "Micro-soft" in letter to Allen, referring to their partnership (60/40 split) [cite] (trademark app says 12Nov)
1975: Ric Weiland is MS employee? [cite] also Marc McDonald [cite]
1976 [timeline]
first real offices in One Park Central Tower in Albuquerque [cite] [pic] seven employees
Gates returns to Harvard for spring term [cite]
1976: 03Feb: Gates publishes piracy-complaint [cite] "An Open Letter to Hobbyists,": first published in Computer Notes
1976: MOS ships 6502 [cite]
1976: Ron Baecker [homepage] founds Human Computing Resources (HCR) in Toronto, fails with page-layout system for newspapers, switches to Unix in 1977, gets source license for $20k? [cite]
1976: Paterson's college roommate buys IMSAI 8080 [cite]
1976: 27Apr: Bill Gates gives the opening address at the First Annual World Altair Computer Convention, held in Albuquerque.
1976: 01Jul: Microsoft refines and enhances BASIC to sell to other customers including DTC, General Electric, NCR, and: Citibank [.doc]
1976: Jul: Marc McDonald writes 1st 6502 Basic? [cite]
no-date: Level II BASIC for TRS-80
1976: 01Nov: Paul Allen resigns from MITS to join Microsoft full time [.doc]
1976: 26Nov: The trade name "Microsoft" is registered with the Office of the Secretary of the State of New Mexico [.doc] "to identify computer programs for use in automatic data processing systems; pre-programming processing systems; and data processing services including computer programming services." The application says that the name has been in continuous use since November 12, 1975. [cite]
1976: Dec: Shugart introduces 5.25" floppy (size based on cocktail napkin) [cite]
1977
Microsoft develops FORTRAN, COBOL, and Assembler [cite]
Basic will be ported to Atari, Cromemco, and Texas Instruments, Z-80, 8080, 6800, 6809, 6502, and 68000 [cite]
1977: Feb: Gates leaves Harvard [cite]
1977: 03Feb: official partnership agreement between Allen and Gates (64/36: cite) [.doc]
1977: 01Jul: FORTRAN-80, Microsofts second language product, is available [.doc]
1977: Aug? 6502 PET source sold to Apple for $21k [cite] ($10.5k? cite)
1977: autumn: Gates and Marc McDonald design File Allocation Table (FAT) for NCR Basic [cite]
1977: 18Nov: after arbitration, Microsoft terminates an exclusive license to MITS for Microsoft's BASIC product [.doc] quickly licenses BASIC for Commodore PET (1st 6502 Basic) and TRS-80
1977: Nov: Gates tries to merge MS with Digital [cite]
1977: 13Dec: Bill picked up for speeding
nine employees [cite]
1978
1978: 11Apr: MS COBOL-80 [cite]
1978: 08Jun: Intel releases 16-bit 8086 [cite] [tech] [critique] designed in ten weeks as stopgap [cite]
1978: Jun: Seattle hires Paterson as consultant on S-100 memory board [cite] Paterson starts grad school
1978: Jul: Paterson starts designing 8086 board for Seattle [cite]
1978: 07Dec: Albuquerque Group photo: Bill Gates, Paul Allen [1975-83], Marc McDonald [1977-84: bio], Bob Greenberg [1977-81], Bob O'Rear [1977-83], Steve Wood [-1980], Marla Wood [-1980, bookkeeper], Bob Wallace [1978-83: obit], Jim Lane [1978-85], Gordon Letwin [1978-93], Andrea Lewis [1978-83, docs] [dates] [wealth]
1978: 31Dec: Microsoft's year-end sales exceed $1M [.doc]
13 employees [cite]
simulator being developed [cite]
1979
1979: 01Jan: Microsoft moves its offices to Bellevue, Washington from Albuquerque [.doc]
1979: MS Consumer Products Division formed [cite] (Olympic Decathlon, Adventure)
1979: Jan: 1st design of Seattle's 8086 board [cite]
1979: Mar: MS has 48 OEM customers for 8080 BASIC, 29 for FORTRAN, and 12 for COBOL [cite]
1979: (1978?) Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) founded by Larry and Doug Michels (father and son) to create Unix ports [cite] [links]
1979: Motorola introduces 68000 16-bit CPU [info] no restartable instructions, so Unix must swap (no paging) [cite] [more]
1979: CP/M being rewritten to support larger filesystems [cite]
1979: IBM prototypes PC using still-scarce 68000 (will substitute cheaper 8088, used in DisplayWriter) [cite]
1979: May: 1st prototype of Seattle's 8086 board [cite][cite] Paterson ports MS Basic to 8086
MS has PDP-10 cross-assembler [cite]
1979: 01Jun: Intel introduces 8088 as discount 8-bit version of 8086 [cite] IBM will choose 8088 for 'short run' PC [info]
1979: 18Jun: MS demos 8086 Standalone BASIC on Seattle's card w/o os [cite]
1979: Aug: H Ross Perot turns down Gates' asking price for MS [cite]
1979: Nov: Seattle ships os-less 8086 cards w/MS BASIC [cite]
1979? Microsoft begs Western Electric for high-volume commercial license [BillG] [date] source-license for $2M? [cite]
1979? MS orders PDP-11 Xenix from HCR [cite]
1979??? MS markets 1st Xenix? [cite] not released until 1983? [cite]
no-date: SCO and HCR are two main commercial Unix houses? [claim]
MS will license Xenix to OEMs (Intel, Tandy, Altos, SCO, etc.) [cite]
28 employees [cite]
1980 [timeline]
1980? MSD Systems sells LSI-11 boxes with HCR Xenix [cite]
1980: Feb: MS starts development of 8086 Xenix? [cite] [SCO?]
1980: Apr: MS licenses CP/M from DRI for Apple 2 Softcards [cite]
1980: Apr: Seattle decides to give up on delayed CP/M-86 [cite]
24yo Tim Paterson starts writing QDOS [cite] [tech] pure CP/M 1.4 ripoff? [cite]
"The only 8086 software-development tools available to Seattle Computer at that time were an assembler that ran on the Z80 under CP/M and a monitor/debugger that fit into a 2K-byte EPROM (erasable programmable read-only memory). Both of these tools had been developed in house." [cite]
1980: 02Apr: Microsoft introduces the Z-80 SoftCard, a circuit board that plugs into the Apple II computer and allows Apple II: users to run CP/M applications with only minor modifications. Sales of the SoftCard will top 100,000 [.doc]
1980: 11Jun: Steve Ballmer joins Microsoft from Proctor and Gamble with responsibility for Operations, including personnel, finance, and legal areas of the business [.doc]
1980: 22Jul: IBM's Jack Sams approaches MS tentatively [1981??] [cite]
1980: Aug: Seattle starts shipping QDOS 0.10 and 0.11 (Quick and Dirty) [cite] 50% finished [cite]
EDLIN written in two weeks [cite]
1980: 25Aug: Microsoft's 1st-ever os 'Xenix' announced for 8086, Z8000, 68000, and PDP-11, based partly on BSD [cite] [cite] [history] 1.0 based on v6 [cite]
1980??? SCO distributes Microsoft Xenix [cite]
1980: late: IBM gets serious with MS [cite]
no-date: MS fails to suggest memory-management mods to support Unix [cite]
"with the slightest modifications to the original PC design, a very simple protected memory environment could have been created with offset and limit registers"
1980: Oct: Microsoft starts developing DOS? [cite]
no-date: Kildall balks at the IBM nondisclosure agreement? (or his wife? cite)
1980: Dec: Seattle renames 86-DOS, v 0.33 [cite] system calls changed [cite] Paterson suspects MS has deal with IBM
40 employees
1981 [timeline]
1981: Jan: 1st Xenix release co-developed by MS and HCR? [German trans]
1981: HCR's PDP-11 Unity? [cite] [cite] [cite] Richard Miller [anecdote] "the first microcomputer UNIX system with full virtual memory to achieve public demonstration" [cite] ported to 68000? [German trans]
1981: Jan? Digital releases CP/M-86 for $500 [cite] [Byte]
no-date: Western Electric charging $12k for single license [Byte Feb81]
1981: Feb: 86-DOS runs on IBM prototype [cite]
1981: winter: MS tells Unix users that Xenix will be ported to TI9900, IBM Series/1, and Point 4 Data Corp systems [Byte Feb81]
1981: MS's Bob Greenberg ports PDP-11 v7 (from HCR or AT&T) to Codata Z8000 [cite] [date] leaves MS? [cite]
1981: Feb: TriData announces SST running MS Xenix on Z8001 [Byte Feb81]
1981: Apr: Seattle's 86-DOS 1.0 [cite] 4000 lines of assembly [cite]
Charles Simonyi moves from Xerox PARC to MS
1981: May: Paterson moves from Seattle to MS [cite] 11 months refining PC-DOS (adding CP/M-style prompts)
1981: May: Richard Brodie moves from Xerox PARC to MS's new Applications Division [memoir] (77th employee)
product line: Basic, Fortran, Xenix, MS-DOS?
'Revenue Bomb' projects:
Multiplan (Electronic Paper): Doug Klunder (later Excel)
C compiler: Brodie, summer 1981
Word: Brodie, summer 1982
1981: Jun: Byte magazine article on Xenix by MS product-mng [cite]
1981: 25Jun: Microsoft reorganizes into a privately held corporation with Gates as president and chairman of the board and Allen as executive vice president. Microsoft becomes Microsoft, Inc., an incorporated business in the state of Washington [.doc] Gates 53%, Allen 31%, Ballmer 8%, Raburn 4%, Simonyi & Letwin 1.5% each [cite]
1981: Xenix-11 on PDP-11 [cite]
1981: Jul: Sun's 68000 workstations shipping with UniSoft or MS Xenix? [cite] [history&tech] (other Sun-board boxes by Codata, Cyb, Pacific, Callan, and Forward?)
1981: 27Jul: Microsoft buys 86-DOS from Seattle Computer for $25k ($50k? cite), changes name to MS-DOS, charges $40 [cite] [cite] [cite]
DIR a:
DIR a:/p
OPEN a:oldfile for input as #1
OPEN b:newfile for output as #2
LIST a:myfile
LLIST a:myfile
RENAME a:myfile:oldfile
KILL a:myfile
no-date: MS has two programmers on Xenix? [cite]
no-date: Lifeboat Associates sells MS-DOS as SB-86 [cite]
1981: 12Aug: IBM announces PC [cite] choice of $40 PC-DOS or $240 CP/M-86 [cite] 4.77MHz 8088, 64k, floppy drive, for $3000 [cite] Gates & Allen are not invited to the rollout [cite]
MS-DOS 1.0 is 4000 lines of assembly-language, runs in 8k [cite]
also MS Basic, MS Cobol, MS Pascal
Bob Wallace writes Pascal [cite]
no-date: CP/M 2.2
no-date: Paterson ports MS Basic compiler to 8086 [cite]
1981: Mark Zbikowski comes to MS from Harvard [cite]
1981: Oct: IBM ships PC [hardware info]
1981? MS develops 1st Xenix port on Suns? [cite]
no-date: MS resells HCR 68000 Xenix to Fortune Systems, Charles River Data Systems and Tandy (TRS-16)? [cite]
1981: Oct: comparison of micro Unix-alikes [excellent]
"Xenix is Bell Unix v7, ported by MS to various machines. They are currently working on microprocessor versions-- for the Intel 8086 first, then Z8000, then MC68000. They (OEM relations people) are saying that the 68000 Xenix system is at least six months off (April 82). At least one of MS's OEM customers, impatient for the 68000 version, is working on it themselves with cooperation from MS. It is possible that one of these will produce a 68000 Xenix soon; one (MicroDaSys) claims that Xenix will be available on their development system in December or January. However these efforts seem to have been stalled, in particular by hardware problems (!) in the 68000 development systems.MS is unwilling to make sources available to anyone (except possibly OEMs), in particular to universities, which they regard as security risks. They claim to be willing to negotiate on this but seem unlikely to make an exception.
C.M. Technologies claims to have a 68000-based XENIX system available by February. The system is alleged to support full 24-bit addressing using an MMU with no paging software. My impression is that they haven't talked with MS recently enough to realize that Xenix availability has been slipped considerably."
1981: Oct: MS 'Virnix' is planned virtual-memory Xenix, "MicroDaSys has contracted with a separate consulting firm to concoct an early working version of Microsoft's VIRNIX" [cite]
1981: Nov: Paterson made technical product manager for MS-DOS [cite] works on 1.1 update
1981: 08Dec: Microsoft and SCO sign letter of intent for SCO to be 2nd-source of Xenix [cite]
1981??? Xenix 2.0 by MS/SCO [cite] based on v7 [cite]
1982 [timeline]
no-date: MP/M [theory]
no-date: MS hires SCO to port Multiplan? [cite]
no-date: MS hires SCO to port Xenix? [cite]
1982: 22Jan: MS agrees to develop spreadsheet, database, and graphics program for Macintosh [cite]
1982: 01Feb: Intel intros 80286 with protected memory mode [cite] [critique]
1982: Feb: Gates and Allen are already planning GUI for IBM [cite]
1982: Feb: imminent (1984?) MS Xenix 3.0 will be based on System III but include some 4.1BSD? [net.micro] [cite] IBM's version for AT will be called IBM Xenix 1.0; Tandy's version called Tandy 68000/Xenix 3.0 [cite]
1982: 01Apr: Paterson quits MS having finished PC-DOS 1.1, returns to Seattle [cite] replaced by Mark Zbikowski for DOS 2.0
DOS 2.0 team includes Paul Allen, Aaron Reynolds, Chris Peters, Mani Ulloa, and Nancy Panners [cite]
1982: Sun hires UniSoft to create 'stopgap' Unix [cite] adds MS Xenix, Lucasfilm Unix
1982: 16Jul: Microsoft Local Area Network (MILAN) is now fully functional, linking all of Microsoft's in-house development computers including a DEC 2060, two PDP-11/70s, a VAX 11/250 and many MC68000 machines running Xenix [cite] [month]
1982: May: TRS-80 Model 16 w/68000 [cite] [date]
1982: Tandy's Xenix Development System [cite]
1982: May: MS-DOS 1.1 [cite] supports 320k floppies
no-date: MS claim DOS 1.25 will include Xenix-compatible pipes, process forks, multitasking, multi-user support, and networking [cite]
1982: Microsoft debuts Multiplan
1982: Jun: Allen interview discusses Xenix-86 [quote]
1982: Jun: MS-DOS 1.24
1982: Jul: MS-DOS 1.25 for OEMS [cite] (supports 720k floppies?) Gates charges $50-100k to gain market share over CP/M [cite]
1982: Jun: Unix-lookalikes for 68000: [net.unix-wizards]
UniSoft v7 (Jeff Schriebman; includes BSD improvements)
Xenix 2.2 v7 (Microsoft, no BSD code)
Fortune v7 (ditto MicroDaSys, Dual)
MIT v7 (ditto Stanford, SMI, Cadlink)
Lucasfilm v7 [1981?]
Whitesmith's Idris
Alcyon
Wicat v7 w/MCS kernel
Charles River Data Systems UNOS
Mark Williams' Coherent (incomplete)
[most of these use Xenix or UniSoft]"an instruction that is aborted in the middle by any sort of memory management fault cannot in general be restarted; thus, demand paging is totally impossible... [Unix] can't really survive on floppies. A 5-10Mb [harddrive] is the minimum configuration" Western Electric charging $45k for source licenses [cite] Xenix requires 5Mb plus 2Mb for compiler [cite]
"offset registers that added to the memory address specified by the CPU when in user mode, and limit registers that did a comparison of a maximum memory location against the actual address being accessed to see if it was within bounds" [cite]
1982: Jul: MS doing development on Suns? [cite] [cite] [date]
1982: summer: Tandy sued because TRSDOS-16 is buggy [cite] porting of Charles River UNOS begins
1982: LSI-11 owner chooses HCR port over SCO [cite]
1982: Altos 586 runs Xenix on 8086 [cite] never really usable [cite] 8087 problem [cite]
1982: Aug: Altos offers 8086 w/Xenix 2.3? [net.news.newsite] [mentioned in Oct Byte-ad, not in Apr]
1982: Aug: Multiplan for Apple and Osborne [cite]
1982: 15Sep: MS brochure claims Xenix is shipping [cite]
1982: late: first Xenix release? [cite]
1982? Tandy pays $5k for AT&T V32 license? [cite] $500 for BSD license
1982: Oct? MS trying to sell Xenix to Tandy for Model 16 [cite] Bob Powell writes buggy Z80 i/o-control code in 90 days (bugs sometimes set fire to video chips)
1982: Oct: Multiplan for IBM PC [cite]
1982: Oct: Byte ad for Columbia 8088 promises Xenix 'soon'
1982: Nov: Microsoft promises Xenix ports for PDP-11 (just rebranded Western Electric version? cite), 8086, Z8000, and 68000 [cite]
Microsoft's old PDP/10 referred to as the "Microsoft Heating Plant" [cite]
Xenix/11 [tech]
no-date: following IBM's example, MS increases ratio of software testers to programmers from 1:20 to almost 1:1 [cite]
no-date: MS hires Scott MacGregor from PARC
1982: Dec? Tandy caves in to MS threats and abandons almost-complete UNOS port for barely-booting Xenix [cite] [cite] Tandy's KarlB, RonL, and JEIV start fixing bugs (Bob Snapp?) Or Tandy switches to Xenix due to storage size-limits? [cites]
no-date: Tandy ports MS Xenix 2.3 (from Apple Lisa? cite) to Model 16, calling it TRS-Xenix 1.0 [cite] ten releases to fix bugs in 1983 [cite] MS royalties $85/each
Tandy Xenix 1.3.x (v7) runs on floppies? [cite]
1982? Allen resigns for health reasons [cite]
1983 [timeline]
1983: TRS-80 Model 2000 w/186 [FAQ] Xenix-2000 ported by SCO [cite]
1983: Jan: Unix System V announced by AT&T [cite]
1983: IBM explores merging DOS with Xenix [cite]
1983: Feb: SCO Xenix-286 mentioned on netnews [net.micro.pc] also Xenix-86 [net.sources] released 1985? [cite]
1983: spring: IBM XT w/8086 [cite]
1983: spring: CP/M-86 finally available for IBM for $240? [cite] (too much too late)
1983: Mar (09Apr?): MS-DOS 2.0 rewritten from scratch, copies Unix directory structure but reverses slashes because forward-slashes were already used [cite] copies Unix surface w/o understanding logic [cite]
installable device-drivers; undocumented background processing [cite]
1983: Apr: MS Xenix 3.0 [cite] for 8086? [cite]
1983: Apr: faked Windows (Interface Manager) demo [cite]
1983: May: Apple Lisa runs 68000 MS Xenix? [cite]
1983: Jun: rumor of MS non-support for Unix-compatible Multiplan? [cite]
1983: Jun: Unix Review compares six Unix-compatibles for IBM PCs [summary] (no Xenix!?)
no-date: commercial Unix ports to x86 w/o source will fizzle [cite]
1983: Jul: John D Halamka's "The TRS-16 Unix System" in Unix magazine [cite]
1983: Jul: Byte announces Xenix 3.0 'soon' for Altos and in November for IBM PCs [cite]
1983: summer: SCO Xenix-86 released [cite] [cite] runs on 8088? [cite]
1983: autumn? MS changes direction, hands off 68000 Xenix to SCO, incl System III port [cite] SCO already a licensee for 808x port
SCO lets Tandy have source; Tandy rewrites substantially [cite]
SCO ports Xenix to Lisa? [cite] [binary]
UniSoft ports Unix to Lisa [info] [SCO/Uni comparison] [more]
SCO fails to deliver 68000 Sys V cite
1983: late: Borland releases cheap Pascal [cite]
1983: Oct (Nov?): Word 1.0 ships [cite] uses new MS mouse [cite]
1983: 10Nov: offical announcement of MS Windows [cite]
1983: Dec: Byte magazine article on MS Windows [multi]
1983: Dec: summary of multi-user micros [net.micro]
Xenix on the TRS-80 Model 16
Codata 68000 and Callahan machines under $10k
DUAL Systems "System/83" 68000 with 4BSD, SIII, or UniSoft
Fortune 32:16, full UNIX package called MIMIX
Fortune: v7/Berkeley 4.1BSD UNIX systems based on 68000 (FOR:PRO 1.7 is name of the UNIX)
Sage IV 68000 w/Idris
PIXEL system, UNIX system III with some BSD enhancements
no-date: MS Applications Division has 30 programmers
1984 [timeline]
1984: Jan: Microsoft promoting Xenix [ad]
"Microsoft's own version of UNIX, called Xenix, is the only UNIX now available, tailored specifically for micros. Microsoft has added many basic features omitted by UNIX's manufacturers, and has announced the product with menus and mouse interfaces for example, for the micro user."
1984: IBM debating DOS-successor, finally chooses OS/2 [cite]
1984? at IBM, CP/88 rewritten as CP/286 [cite]
1984: AT&T divested, Unix becomes commercial product; source code restricted
1984: Apr: thread claims Xenix running fine of 8086 and 286 boxes [net.micro]
1984: May: Phoenix BIOS reverse-engineered [cite]
1984: Jun: AT&T 6300 w/8086 [info]
1984: 68010 chip
1984: Aug: IBM AT w/286; SysReq key for switching OSes (esp to IBM's own TopView) [cite]
MS re-grabs Xenix-286 development from SCO for IBM AT (System V) [cite] SCO races MS to finish Tandy port first (System III, later switched to System V based on MS's buggy port, took 9 months to fix)
1984: earliest SCO copyrights on Xenix 3.x [cite]
1984? Aug: MS Xenix for PC (SCO says 1983)
1984: Aug: SCO starts Xenix-186 port for Tandy [cite]
1984: Aug: Xenix Multiplan mentioned [cite]
1984: Aug: IBM's PC/IX for ATs [cite] renamed Interactive? [cite] done by Interactive Systems [cite]
1984: Nov: TRS-80 Model 16B best-selling Unix box? [cite] TRS-Xenix 1.03? [cite]
no-date: MS hires Logica to port Xenix to 68000??? [cite]
1984-1985: Konrad Morgan of Logica's Software Products Group implements Xenix on DEC machines [email reply] [cite] more
1984: Dec: IBM Xenix Software Development Guide [cite]
1985 [timeline]
1985: Jan: MS's Mac expert moved to 2-years-late Windows [cite]
Windows 1.0 [tour]
1985: Mar: Tandy TRS-80 Model 6000 runs 68000 Xenix 3.0 [cite] [cite] based on SCO's Lisa port [cite]
1985: 25Jun: Gates tries to convince Apple to allow Mac clones [cite]
1985: Oct: AT&T 6300+ (286, used by Korn to write Korn shell? cite)
1985: AT&T Xenix 3.0 for $395 [cite]
1985: 17Oct: Intel 80386DX can address 4 gigs [info] [cite] [critique]
no-date: MS hires SCO to help port Xenix to 386? [cite] MS loses interest in Xenix and hands off 386 to SCO [cite]
1985: Dec: comparison of IBM Xenix 1.0 and PC/IX [net.micro.pc]
1985? MS Xenix System V begins new numbering scheme: IBM calls it IBM Xenix 2.0, SCO calls it SCO Xenix 2.0 [cite] [date]
IBM version released sooner than Tandy (SCO) but buggier w/bad docs [cite]
1985: SCO Xenix-286 [cite]
1986 [timeline]
1986: 13Mar: MS IPO [cite] Gates worth $300M [cite]
1986: MS Xenix 286
1986: SCO internally used v7-compatible 'Dynix'? [list thread] ditto
1986: IBM's AIX for 386 [cite] and RT/PC [cite] done by Interactive Systems [cite]
1986: Dec: MS and DRI in court [cite]
1987 [timeline]
1987: SCO hosts '386 Summit' and 'Xenix 386 Developer Conference' [cite]
1987: Jul? SCO Xenix 386 [cite] [GooJa] [museum]
1987: AT&T agrees to pay MS for Xenix compatibility [cite]
no-date: SCO sabotages Intel ABI program? [cite]
no-date: Tandy Xenix 3.2 [war stories]
no-date: Tandy 286 Xenix [war stories]
1988 [timeline]
1988: Mar: Apple files look-and-feel lawsuit [cite]
1988: MS starts development of NT [cite] still working full-bore on Windows 3.0
1988: OS/2 1.0 (Dec87? cite)
1988? Microsoft still using Xenix for documentation and email, but not for development [Slashdot thread]
1988: 16Jun: Intel's 80386SX with 16-bit bus [cite]
1988: Aug (31Oct?): MS hires DEC's Cutler [cite]; Xenix phased out for MS inhouse use? [Slashdot thread]
1988? Tandy 6000 being killed off by marketing dept? [cite]
1989 [timeline]
1989: SCO UNIX System V/386 [cite] [memoir]
1989: Microsoft buys 16% of SCO for $25M [cite]
1990: SCO buys HCR [cite] and Codata? [cite]
1990: 22May: Windows 3.0, supports 386 [cite]
no-date: Javelin beats Excel for best-product, Gates storm out?
1992: OS/2 2.0
1992: MS announces Windows NT
1992: Apr: Unix Review publishes survey "Unix Variants"
1993: SCO IPO [cite]
1994: 01Jan: BillG marries Melinda French
1995? MS sells Xenix to SCO
1995: SCO buys Unix from Novell [cite]
1996? MS disconnects last Xenix mail-server [cite]
2000: Aug: Caldera acquires (parts of) SCO
2002: Caldera changes name to SCO Group
multipage Gates interview [onepage]
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