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    Abort Retry Fail

    abortretry.fail · Publication · on HN since 2022

    Histories of computing companies and hardware, such as Silicon Graphics, Tandy, Xerox, Novell, and Itanium, also available as a mailing list.

    Visit blogHN submissions
    HistoryRetro ComputingTech Industry
    What HN says

    HN commenters repeatedly recommend it as the go-to source for computer hardware company history, calling the writing excellent.

    Stats for nerds
    47HN people shared it
    204linked in comments
    4.7Kstory points
    Aug 2026last shared
    2023people per year2026

    Top posts on HN

    1. 1
      The Rise and Fall of Silicon Graphics
      3 people · 357 points · first shared 2024 · 365 comments on HN
    2. 2
      The QNX Operating System
      1 person · 322 points · first shared 2025 · 142 comments on HN
    3. 3
      3dfx: So powerful, it's kind of ridiculous (2023)
      2 people · 321 points · first shared 2023 · 268 comments on HN
    4. 4
      'Be' is nice, end of story
      2 people · 314 points · first shared 2022 · 179 comments on HN
    5. 5
      The History of S.u.S.E
      1 person · 243 points · first shared 2025 · 128 comments on HN
    6. 6
      The Berkeley Software Distribution
      3 people · 220 points · first shared 2024 · 79 comments on HN
    7. 7
      Work at the Mill: The story of Digital Equipment Corporation
      2 people · 179 points · first shared 2025 · 95 comments on HN
    8. 8
      Of Psion and Symbian
      1 person · 171 points · first shared 2024 · 60 comments on HN
    9. 9
      Creative Technology: The Sound Blaster
      2 people · 166 points · first shared 2025 · 113 comments on HN
    10. 10
      The History of Windows XP
      2 people · 159 points · first shared 2025 · 104 comments on HN

    What HN people wrote when they linked it

    • lizknopeJul 2024

      A/UX was still a licensed version of Unix. This post says the licensing fee was $1,000 per seat.

      https://www.reddit.com/r/Apple_AUX/comments/11wks6i/what_was_apples_aux_operating_system_all_about/

      I remember the AT&T / BSD lawsuit in 1992. Maybe Apple looked at NeXTSTEP and since it is based on the Mach microkernel and BSD that they would be able to fix the 10 or so files to avoid the AT&T / Unix System Labs licensing fees like Free/NetBSD did.

      In the 1980's Microsoft had their own port of Unix named Xenix. Why didn't they push this instead of the very limited MS-DOS?

      https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-history-of-xenix

      > In March of 1982, Western Electric reduced the royalty fees that it charged for UNIX with the introduction of UNIX System III (a combination of UNIX V7 and PWD). This was done by raising the source license cost, but lowering the royalty per user license to $100 (about $318 in 2023) from $250. This meant that Microsoft’s prepayment of $200000 in 1980 (around $700k in 2023) for a discount in volume was voided if they wished to use the newer system. That same month, on the 10th, Paul Allen held a seminar in NYC where he outlined plans for MS-DOS 2.0.

    • alexisreadJan 2026

      It was a massive shame the TV-toy project at Sinclair did not work out. It was a SOC/low cost computer based on the Inmos transputer (Called the T400, an M212 without dedicated link hardware) around 1983. That might have kept Inmos afloat- they were responsible for a lot of the RAM chip innovation, VGA standard, transputer etc. so the world would have looked very different.
      I do wonder what could have been with that chip paired with the Slipstream chip, oh well.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transputer TV-toy

      https://www.abortretry.fail/p/inmos-and-the-transputer TV-toy

      https://www.transputer.net/tn/50/tn50.html M212 details

      https://forums.atariage.com/topic/271372-flare-technology-and-the-canceled-konix-multi-system/page/2/ 9.2mb/s bandwidth+sequencer_list

    • lprovenNov 2025

      "Several years"?

      Try "a decade and a half".

      AT&T itself ported UNIX™ to the Intel 8086 in 1978:

      https://www.nokia.com/bell-labs/about/dennis-m-ritchie/otherports/newp.html

      The 8086 was the first ever microprocessor to run Unix – before 68000 or anything.

      The first release of MS, later SCO, Xenix was 1981.

      https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-history-of-xenix

      It was later ported to the 8086 in 1983 and 80286 by 1985.

      https://landley.net/history/mirror/unix/scohistory.html

      So Unix was running some 4 years before IBM launched the PC and Xenix was on the market by 2 years after launch.

      That was a full 8 years before Linus got Linux 0.01 out in 1991.

      UNIX is a 1970s OS; x86 PC Unix was a commercial 1980s product; Linux is a 1990s thing.

    • bayindirhMay 2024

      > I can’t ever see a communist system coming up with an iPhone.

      Soviets invented a lot of things, in terms of aviation, computers, celestial navigation in intercontinental missiles. There was also an article, which I read recently but failed to find it now, about how they revolutionized mechanical watches, and came out with their own quartz movements, without copying anyone.

      Oh lastly, they did the "iPhone of sea going vehicles", the erkanoplan, and VLIW computing which led us to Itanium at some point [0].

      [0]: https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-itanic-saga

    • NoSaltJul 2025

      Does anybody else find things like this frustrating?

      https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-tandy-corporation-part-1

      https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-tandy-corporation-part-2

      https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-tandy-corporation-part-3 ← NOPE

      - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

      https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-tandy-corporation-part-1

      https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-tandy-corporation-part-2

      https://www.abortretry.fail/p/tandy-corporation-part-3

    • canucker2016Sep 2023

      For Visicalc, Dan Bricklin has a few blog posts: http://www.bricklin.com/history/intro.htm

      For Aston-Tate's dBase app, there's this blog post about its history: https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-ashton-tate

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