Venix 86 2.x
First unveiled in 1983 as Venix/86 for 8088/8086 CPUs, Venix is a compact lightweight multi-user multi-tasking operating system for IBM PC compatible computers. It was created by VenturCom and published through Unisource. Venix is notable for being the first available adaptation of UNIX for IBM PCs, beating IBM to the UNIX market. It was initially based off of UNIX Version 7.
Version 3.x is based on UNIX System V. There was also a real-time enhanced version based on System V.3.2.
Venix competed with other early PC UNIX ports such as PC/IX, Coherent, and uNETix.
Release notes
The DEC Rainbow releases are only for DEC Rainbow computers. To convert the 400k image files for writing with ImageDisk, use the command: BIN2IMD <image.img> <image.imd> DM=4 N=80 SS=512 SM=1-10 /1
The 2.1 release looks like it may be a "backup".
The manuals are for the DEC Professional, which is not an x86 architecture. ("PRO/Venix" rather than "Venix/86")
Wanted: If anyone has any more disk dumps, please contribute them!
Information
- Product type
- OS
- Vendor
- VenturCom, Inc.
- Release date
- 1984
- Minimum CPU
- 8088
- Minimum RAM
- 192KB
- User interface
- Text
- Platform
- Unix
- Download count
- 3 (2 for release)
Downloads
| Download name | Version | Language | Architecture | File size | Downloads |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Venix Manuals [DEC Professional] (1984) |
2.x | English |
|
67.82MB | 0 |
 Venix-86 2.0R (1984) [DEC Rainbow] (5.25-SSQD) |
2.0R | English |
|
850.21KB | 0 |
|
Venix-86 2.0R-BSW (1985) [DEC Rainbow] (5.25-SSQD) |
2.0R-BSW | English |
|
1.18MB | 0 |
|
Venix-86 2.1 (1985) (5.25-1.2mb) |
2.1 | English |
|
1.99MB | 2 |