A bit of XENIX history

A dive in the history of Xenix, Microsoft’s Unix.

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See also the HN discussion: A bit of XENIX history (2014) | Hacker News

One thing that turned up there is an early GUI used by Siemens on their Xenix derived SINIX systems before they transitioned to X Windows and OSF/Motif, “Collage”. (Probably late 1980s, by 1993 Collage had been phased out already. – I’ve never heard of the this.)


(Desktop and menu dialog for the “admin” application [selected].)


(Active window.)


(Active and inactive states, confirmation dialog.)


(Further GUI elements: Scroll list with active scrollbar, grouped controls, radio buttons, checkbox, input fields.)

These and further screenshots/hardcopies can be found in this German manual (starting at page 111):

The windows have a somewhat Lisa-like feel and seem to collapse to Smalltalk-like title tabs, while it also shows a few Xerox Star-like elements, like the title bar for the desktop. (An interesting feature is the keyboard hint seen on buttons, like “END” for the button labeled “Ende”.)
The basic building blocks are apparently windows containing lists, called “Finders”. None of the windows seen here (all views of the “admin” application) does show any widgets (like a close or collapse box), but are rather embodiments of a button-driven workflow.
(There is no view of a file selection dialog or any file manipulation in this document.)

Other: Xenix becoming DOS 6.0 is probably my favorite alternative IT history.


P.S.: Rather funny, the small hickup seen in the second image, where the umlaut u in “München” becomes “M unchen” – and this on a German system. That’s why we have Unicode, kids. :wink:

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I use SINIX - a XENIX derivat on Siemens MX300 intel/NSC and on a PC-MX2 (NSC).
On rechner - siemens - MX-RM and deeper are more informations.

Here are some videos installing SINIX for intel and NSC versions. I speed up the videos a little so you may for better watching slow down the speed on youtube. The MX300 are away, the PC-MX2 stays behind me today.

PC-MX2 https://youtu.be/dDIOMtDCg6s
MX300-45(i) https://youtu.be/mcjr0jCKwq8
MX300-10(NSC) https://youtu.be/ifesVREtdyk

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Oh, we see the installation of a Collage stream multiplexer.
Collage, was a proprietary GUI for SINIX, which came in both a character based and a bitmap flavor. (But I think, just a few standard frontend applications made use of this, as it wasn’t too highly integrated and left much to the program.)


Collage 4, bitmap graphics.


Collage 4, character graphics.

(Images from the Collage 4.1 manual.)

I must correct the headline as the SINIX 5.21 on the PC-MX2 and MX300-10 (NSC) is a XENIX derivat while the SINIX 5.4x on the MX300 intel version is System V/386. On PC-MX2 only Sinix 5.24 will include the collage menue as I was told - sadly I have only MX2 SNIX 5.21 and no MX300 anymore.
The collage is available for non graphic and graphic terminals but I’m not a Siemens guru so I have to read the documentation for more information.

I had the MX300-10(NSC) / 45(intel) hardware and changed the CPU and Memory card to use NSC and Intel SINIX for testing. The pictures are from MX300-45 intel version of SINIX. I’ll see if I have a video tapping through the menus on top.


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