INTERACTIVE Systems Corporation
INTERACTIVE Systems Corporation (ISC) was a US-based software company and the first vendor of the Unix operating system outside AT&T, operating from Santa Monica, CA.
ISC's 1977 offering, IS/1, was a Version 6 Unix variant enhanced for office automation for the PDP-11. IS/3 and IS/5 were enhanced versions of Unix System III and System V for PDP-11 and VAX. ISC Unix ports to the IBM PC included a variant of System III, developed under contract to IBM, known as PC/IX (Personal Computer Interactive eXecutive), with later versions branded 386/ix and finally INTERACTIVE UNIX System V/386 (based on System V Release 3.2). ISC was AT&T's "Principal Publisher" for System V.4 on the Intel platform.[1]
ISC was also involved in the development of VM/IX (Unix as a guest OS in VM/CMS), IX/360 (native Unix on the System/360) and AIX, again under contract to IBM. Several former ISC staff founded Segue Software which partnered with Lotus Development to develop the Unix version of Lotus 1-2-3 and with Peter Norton Computing to develop the Unix version of the Norton Utilities.
ISC was acquired by Eastman Kodak Company in 1988, [2] which sold its ISC Unix operating system assets to Sun Microsystems on September 26, 1991.[3] Kodak sold the remaining parts of ISC to SHL Systemhouse Inc in 1993.[4] Final support for INTERACTIVE System V/386 from Sun ended on July 23, 2006.
[edit] References
- ^ "INTERACTIVE Systems Corp. of Reston, Va., has inked a distribution agreement with Government Micro Resources". Software Industry Report. 1991-03-18. http://static.highbeam.com/s/softwareindustryreport/march181991/interactivesystemscorpofrestonvahasinkedadistribut/. Retrieved 2006-04-12.[dead link]
- ^ Sten A. O. Thore. The diversity, complexity, and evolution of high tech capitalism. Kluwer Academic Publishers. p. 78. ISBN 9780792396390. http://www.stenthore.info/The%20Diversity,%20Complexity,%20and%20Evolution%20of%20High%20Tech%20Capitalism.pdf.
- ^ "SunSoft To Acquire INTERACTIVE Intel-Software Division Of Kodak, SunFLASH Vol 33 #26". Sun Microsystems. 1991-09-26. http://egle.lanet.lv/ftp/unix/sun-info/sunflash/1991/Sep/33.26.interactive. Retrieved 2006-04-12.
- ^ "Kodak sells Interactive to US subsidiary of Canada's SHL Systemhouse.". http://www.allbusiness.com/technology/computer-software/350084-1.html. Retrieved 2008-09-30.
- Maurice J. Bach, The Design of the UNIX Operating System, ISBN 0-13-201799-7, Prentice Hall, 1986.
- Peter H. Salus, "Nearly 20 Years ago in U[SE]NIX," ;login: 28(6), December 2003 [1]
