What was it like launching the "porting" series

At the time Jon Erickson and I agreed to do the series, DOS was the prime platform for the IBM PC/AT. Windows 3 wasn't very well regarded, and the most common alternative platform was probably a Macintosh 512K.

Less than 10% of those with a PC had a machine as advanced as a 20Mhz 386 with 4MB or more memory with a 100 megabyte hard drive. CDROM's were anticipated, but the primary storage medium was 5 1/4 inch floppies.

So the primary goal of the article series wasn't UNIX or BSD types, but PC DOS programmers. Which is why the focus was on a console only BSD system, knowing full well that "real" bitmap graphics was still years off from being commonplace. This shows up in the goals of the first article "DESIGNING THE SOFTWARE SPECIFICATION".

If we could just get a OS out there, PC developers would go crazy and build out whatever was necessary. The only problem would be holding them back from what should probably not be done ...