SCO

Nor can we :-)

Most older SCO apps could transition to the 5.0.x versions. If there were obstacles, sometimes a little creative linking/ symlinking could resolve it, but in general, you have to need or want it very badly if it doesn't just pop up working. I can tell you that it would take a lot more than money to get me involved in anything like that today. In general, I strongly urge people toward Linux - and even (shudder) Windows if there is no other choice.

The stuff is just too hard to support. I fixed up an old SCO spreadsheet app to run on a 5.0.6 system some years back - for unexplained reasons it just stopped working last year. The people wanted me to fix it again - I just put my foot down and told them they had to move on because I wasn't going to mess with it again. They were not happy, but I was :-)

---------- Post updated at 02:27 PM ---------- Previous update was at 02:20 PM ----------

I found Peerkins Elmer software running on SCO:

EVISA Instrument database: Perkin-Elmer Corp. - Optima 3000

Bottom of the page:

So - he very well could have old SCO software. Again, could be xinstall, pkgadd or even just tar or cpio disks.

That was a good find ! Bravo! Just about the same year as SCO 2 as well.

This thread is evolving to an exciting edition of CSI - UNIX Forensics.....

OBTW, according to the best lead we have so far:

I used to run HP Rocky Mountain Basic (RMS) around the same time frame that controlled IEEE-488 gear (HP test equipment), so it could indeed be native SCO software.

Back then, SCO was very popular. Remember, Linux barely existed and any other multi-user/ multi-tasking OS was expensive. SCO was relatively cheap (about $1500.00) and you could attach dumb terminals or Windows. A LOT of folks ported software to SCO (Lotus, Perkin Elmer, Oracle, Pick, RealWorld accounting, Foxpro...) and really - you couldn't throw a rock in any city or town without hitting a SCO system - they were everywhere, from the corner gas stations to restaurants and airlines.

But SCO management blew it all. They'd tell a different story, but really 90% of their downward spiral was their own fault.

i started using Linux, Slackware 0.8 (as I recall), around the same time period. I used it to replace ATT 3B2s in the USAF, Air Combat Command.

The 3B2s were so bad that I recall the system locking up just running an update with the ifconfig command. They were big and square and white and made great door stops. I used them as stands for potted plants and installed Linux (Slackware) on every broken/available Intel machine I could find in the closets of ACC bases. That was late 1993, early 1994.

I really don't recall ever using SCO, even back then we were installing Linux to replace MS mail servers, DNS servers, etc. at every opportunity.

Viva the Revolution!

I lucked out and missed the ODTs. Xenix 3.2.5 (I think it was) to 3.2.4.0, 4.2, then 5.0.0. But I can remember the 386 and 486 during the timeframe under discussion.

Only had one system that talked to instruments so I would plead ignorance of the details. If it wasn't inside the box, the install of the OS, the standard i/o I, computone, or arnet I avoided it.

I recall, now that we are talking about that time period, working on a project to use HP-UX RMB, which was needed to communicate with HP test gear via IEEE-488, and then dump summary data to a Progress database using their APIs.

As part of my architecture, I had to create a lot of shared memory IPCs and share memory using RMB/HP-UX. Back then I could talk directly with the core HP-UX RMB engineering team, and they told me I was the first person who actually used HP-UX shared memory with RMB. But, we actually got it working....

So, I cut my teeth completely on HP-UX and the evolved to Linux, working on a series of SUN OS projects along the way, and retiring just about everything else I ran across. That was 15 years ago.

Now, SCO is ...... well... never mind. Sun will belong to Oracle.... and Linux just keeps on getting stronger.

I agree with Tony. If I had the Perkin disks in front of me, I would analyze with Linux tools, without a doubt.