AT&T's USL, Intel, and SCO open way for binary specification in 386/486 open system market

AT&T's USL, Intel, and SCO open way for binary specification in 386/486 open system market

Business Wire

August 21, 1990

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. -- With the intent to ensure ``shrink wrap'' binary applications compatibility across open system software platforms targeted for Intel 386/486 industry-standard hardware platforms, AT&T's UNIX System Laboratories Inc. (USL), Intel Corp., and The Santa Cruz Operation Inc. (SCO) Tuesday agreed to define an extended common binary applications compatibility specification.

As a result, application developers following this specification can create a single version of their application which will run on all 386/486-based operating systems that conform to the specification. Both SCO and USL have committed to providing conformant operating systems.

Intel, SCO and USL have agreed to jointly define an extension to the Intel Binary Compatibility Specification (iBCS) established in 1988. The extension will be called iBCS Edition 2.

This new specification will support international open system standards for source-language compatibility, including X/Open XPG 3 and future versions of the XPG standard, as well as IEEE POSIX 1003.1 and FIPS 151-1.

In a related announcement, the Open Software Foundation Inc. (OSF) today reaffirmed its commitment, originally announced in May 1990, to provide compatibility with XENIX System V and UNIX System V/386 Release 3.2 environments in the OSF/1 operating system.

Application developers can use the SCO UNIX System V/386 Release 3.2, Open Desktop, SCO XENIX 386, and AT&T UNIX System V/386 Release 3.2 development environments, and any of these development environments on AT&T UNIX System V/386 Release 4, to create applications for all iBCS Edition 2-compliant operating systems.

In addition to ensuring long life for current applications, this agreement also opens new opportunities for application developers by enlarging the scope of the original iBCS to encompass such areas as interfaces for open system networking and X Window System-based graphical applications, and procedures for installing applications.

Intel Corp. will publish and maintain iBCS Edition 2. Intel will also create the necessary test suites to verify conformance of an operating system to the specification. An open procedure will be developed for defining future extensions to the iBCS Edition 2 specification.

Key application developers, OEMs, systems integrators, end users and representatives from leading industry groups agree that the accord will spur market growth and ensure the further acceptance of international open system software and hardware standards.

Intel is an international manufacturer of microcomputer components, modules and systems.

The Santa Cruz Operation Inc., is a privately held company recognized internationally as the worldwide leader in open system software solutions. SCO offers a wide range of UNIX System V software solutions, training, and support services for standard hardware platforms. To date, SCO has shipped over 30,000 UNIX Systems for industry-standard computers -- more than any other supplier.

Founded in 1979, SCO fields a staff of over a thousand among its Santa Cruz, California; Washington, D.C.; Toronto and London offices, including one of the largest UNIX System technical teams in the world. SCO Forum90 is the fourth annual international SCO marketing and technology conference held on the campus of the University of California, Santa Cruz.

UNIX International is a nonprofit organization responsible for directing the evolution of UNIX System V. UNIX International has over 165 members comprised of end users, system vendors, software developers, and hardware manufacturers. These members jointly create the product requirements for UNIX System V, through the organization's unique ``one member - one vote'' workgroup structure.

These specifications are then implemented by the UNIX System Laboratories, a subsidiary of AT&T, which produces and licenses the operating system code.

UNIX System Laboratories Inc. (USL) a subsidiary of AT&T, develops and markets UNIX System V and related systems software in source code form to computer hardware and system software vendors worldwide, under the guidance of UNIX International Inc. USL was formerly known as AT&T's UNIX Software Operation.

CONTACT: AT&T USL (UNIX System Laboratories) Dick Muldoon, 201/829-7212 or Intel Corp. Ursula Herrick, 408/765-5728 or The Santa Cruz Operation Inc., Santa Cruz Zee Zaballos, 408/425-7222