mt Xinu (from the letters in "

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

™", reversed) was a

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

company founded in 1983 that produced two

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

s. Its slogan "We know Unix™ backwards and forwards" was an allusion to the company's name and abilities. mt Xinu offered several products: * ''mt Xinu'' was a commercially licensed version of the

BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berk ...

operating system for the DEC

VAX VAX (an acronym for Virtual Address eXtension) is a series of computers featuring a 32-bit instruction set architecture (ISA) and virtual memory that was developed and sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the late 20th century. The V ...

. The initial version was based on 4.1cBSD; later versions were based on 4.2 and 4.3BSD. * ''more/BSD'' was mt Xinu's version of 4.3BSD-Tahoe for VAX and

HP 9000 HP 9000 is a line of workstation and server computer systems produced by the Hewlett-Packard (HP) Company. The native operating system for almost all HP 9000 systems is HP-UX, which is based on UNIX System V. The HP 9000 brand was introduced in ...

, incorporating code from the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

HPBSD The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berke ...

. It included NFS. * ''Mach386'' was a hybrid of Mach 2.5/2.6 and 4.3BSD-Tahoe/Reno for 386 and 486-based

IBM PC compatible IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones. ...

s. Apart from operating systems, mt Xinu also produced

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

-Unix interoperability software, including an AppleShare server for Unix."Mt Xinu ships Appleshare for HP workstations.

InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its siste ...

, 10 September 1990, p. 51. The company's principals were

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

students and graduates, notably Bob Kridle, Alan Tobey, Ed Gould, and Vance Vaughan. Debbie Scherrer was a later contributor. mt Xinu is also famous for its light-hearted Unix-themed calendars, including: * ''Command of the Month'' (1987–1988) * ''Lessons in Art'' (1989) * ''Platform of the Year'' (1990) In 1991 a division of mt Xinu broke off to become Xinet.

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mt xinu Berkeley Software Distribution Mach (kernel) Unix history