Help wanted with OLD version of Xenix

[Malcolm Campbell]

I have just acquired a second-hand 286 PC, and, separately, a very old copy
of Xenix. I have good knowledge of PC's and UNIX, but very little XENIX
knowledge so Im looking for some help.

The version of Xenix I have is Sperry Xenix 2.0. I think its rebadged SCO
Xenix (presumably 2.0) but Im not sure. It claims to be binary compatible
with Microsoft Xenix 3.0, but Ive never heard of a Xenix numbered greated
than 2.x.x.

Problems:

1) It doesnt know about VGA, and the display runs out of sync if a VGA card
(which my PC has on-board) is connected as soon as Xenix boots. It doesnt
even work if the VGA card is set to EGA-mode. It works with Hercules, and
with a real EGA card, but also not with a plug-in VGA card. 

This isnt a real problem for now, Im quite happy to run Xenix on a Hercules.

2) This is more of a problem. It doesnt recognize 3.5" disks, and I cant
fit anything else inside the case - installing it involved ribbon cables
everywhere. Since I can set the drive type to be 96tpi, 9 sectors/track
I would have thought I could have got it to read/write at least low density
3.5" disks. No hope on high-density ones.

Also, it wont read DOS 3.x or DOS 4.x disks properly. The command
dosdir gets stuck in a loop and prints the directory over and over again.
The manual talks about DOS2.x and DOS 1.x disks so I presume there is
some difference it cant cope with.

I havent tried reading a DOS 3.x hard disk - but will do so soon..

If anyone can help with any of this Id be very grateful - I cant afford to
buy a new version of Xenix, its very expensive here - expecially since
I would want the Development and Text Processing Kits as well. Im hoping
there will be some workaround for now..

Thanks,

--- Malcolm