Founding In 1983, AT&T announced UNIX System V at the
West Coast Computer Faire in
Anaheim, California. In an effort to promote System V, AT&T created a program with
Intel,
Motorola,
Zilog, and other major
CPU manufacturers at the time. Through this program, AT&T paid each of the processor manufacturers to port System V onto a standard hardware "reference" platform for each company's flagship CPU. By providing this software with the reference hardware, computer manufacturers could easily put UNIX onto their new systems, with a substantial reduction in cost. Prior to this, each hardware platform required its own UNIX port that required significant resources and time to develop. By providing a port for similar hardware designs, development cost was substantially reduced, typically only requiring minor modifications. This new porting process required only a few developers and led to the name Microport. Microport's early days were characterized by an early
hacker-driven environment. Founder Chuck Hickey realized that the AT&T port for the Intel's System 86/30 could be easily modified for the IBM 286
personal computer (PC), bringing the AT&T System V UNIX technology to the PC for the first time It joined
Unix International and participated in the software development for the first multiprocessor with
Unisys, Intel, and
Sequent Computer Systems. Microport was among the first to compile System V, Release 4 (SVR4) for the
Pentium processor and was credited with having the best serial device driver among all of the UNIX vendors. In 1992, Microport dropped its own UNIX development and became a reseller of
UnixWare (SVR4.2) after Novell bought the rights to UNIX. Microport maintained development for select drivers and still closed large OEM deals until SCO bought the rights to UnixWare from Novell in December 1995. Microport became a reseller for SCO, which failed to recognize the threat posed by
Linux and
Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Microport's CEOs never took the FSF or
Open Source movement seriously despite the fact that some of its original development staff had assisted the FSF. Mike Grinder, an early Microport employee, took over as the head of Microport prior to its final bankruptcy and closing in 2002. == Impact ==