Is Unix not a PC Operating System?

Posted by Corelgott on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Corelgott
Published on 2012-03-28T22:10:25Z Indexed on 2012/03/29 11:33 UTC
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linux

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unix

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operating-systems

I am doing my Bachelor at a university. In a written assignment the professor posted the task: "Name 3 PC-Operating Systems".

Well, I went on an included a variety of OS (Linux, Windows, OSx) including Unix & Solaris. Today I recieved a mail from my prof saying:

Unix is not a PC-Operating System. Many Unix-variants are not PC-hardware compatible (like AIX & HP-UX. About Solaris: there was one PC-compatible version...)

I am kind of suprised: Even if may Unix-variants are Power-PC and different bit-order – Those don't stop being PCs now, right?

The question was given in a written assigment! It was not a question that came up during lecture!

_{Due to the original task being in German, I'll include it just to make sure nobody suspects an error in the translation.}

_{Frage: Nennen Sie 3 PC-Betriebssysteme.

Antwort: Unix ist kein PC-Betriebssystem, viele Unix-Varianten sind nicht auf PC-Hardware lauffähig (AIX, HP-UX). Von Solaris gab es mal eine PC-Variante.}

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