Editing Merge (software) (section)

==History==
Merge was originally developed to run [[DOS]] under [[UNIX System V]] Release 2 on an [[AT&T 6300 Plus]] personal computer. Development of the virtual machine began in late 1984, and AT&T announced the availability of the machine on 9 October 1985,<ref name="Petrosky_1985"/> referring to the bundled Merge software as Simultask.<ref name="Welch_1986"/> (The PC 6300 Plus shipped with [[MS-DOS]] in 1985 though, because its Unix System V distribution was not ready until the end of March 1986.)<ref name="WithoutUnix_1986"/> Merge was developed by engineers at [[Locus Computing Corporation]], with collaboration from AT&T hardware and software engineers, particularly on aspects of the system that were specific to the 6300 Plus (in contrast to a standard [[IBM Personal Computer AT|IBM PC/AT]]).

The AT&T 6300 Plus contained an [[Intel 80286]] processor, which did not include the support for [[Intel 8086|8086]] virtual machines ([[virtual 8086 mode]]) found in the [[i386|80386]] and later processors in the x86 family. On the 80286, the DOS program had to run in [[real mode]]. The 6300 Plus was designed with special hardware on the bus that would suppress and capture bus cycles from the DOS program if they were directed toward addresses not assigned for direct access by the DOS virtual machine.<ref name="Prestinario_1986"/> Various system registers, such as the [[programmable interrupt controller]] (PIC), and the video controller, had to be emulated in software for the DOS process, and a [[watchdog timer]] was implemented to recover from DOS programs that would clear the interrupt flag and then hang for too long. The hardware used the [[non-maskable interrupt]] (NMI) to take control back to the emulation code.<ref name="Patent_4747040"/>

Later, Merge was enhanced to make use of the [[virtual 8086 mode]] provided by the 80386 processor; that version was offered with [[Microport Systems|Microport]] SVR3 starting in 1987,{{citation needed|date=February 2014}} and subsequently with [[SCO Group|SCO Unix]]. There was also a Merge/286 version that ran on an unmodified PC/AT (without any special I/O trapping hardware); it ran as long as the PC program was reasonably well-behaved, though a malicious or crashing program could take the unprotected UNIX kernel down on those machines. Even so, the notoriously ill-behaved ''[[Microsoft Flight Simulator]]'' would run on the PC/AT simultaneously with Unix.{{citation needed|date=February 2014}} These later versions were marketed directly by Locus as well as through some OEM and ISV channels. A product-evaluation version with user manual appeared in January 1987, with retail Version 1.0 of Merge/386 shipping in October of that year.

In the late 1980s, the main commercial competitor of Merge was [[VP/IX]] developed by [[Interactive Systems Corporation]] and [[Phoenix Technologies]].<ref name="Enterprise_1987"/> AT&T's Simultask 2.0 was based on VP/IX.<ref name="Inc_1989"/><ref name="Rosen_1990"/>

In 1992, [[Univel]] [[UnixWare 1.0 Personal Edition]] came with ''DOS Merge 3.0'' and [[Novell]]'s [[DR&nbsp;DOS 6.0]].

Locus eventually joined the [[Microsoft]] [[Windows Interface Source Environment|WISE]]<ref name="WISE_1995"/> program which gave them access to [[Microsoft Windows]] source code, which allowed later versions of Merge to run Windows ''shrink wrapped'' applications without a copy of Windows.<ref name="Locus_1995"/>

On 12 April 1995, [[Platinum Technology]] announced an agreement in principle to acquire Locus Computing Corporation for approximately {{currency|amount=33|code=USD}}&nbsp;million, about 1/4 of which was attributed to the Merge technology and product.{{citation needed|date=February 2014}} The acquisition went through, and Platinum went on to develop the SCO Merge 4 version with [[Windows 95]] support, which was released in 1998.<ref name="Magee_1998"/>

The Merge technology was bought by a company called DASCOM in 1999, which was in turn bought by [[IBM]]. A company called TreLOS was spun off in 2000 that continued the development of the virtual machine software and created [[Win4Lin]]. TreLOS later merged into NeTraverse, Inc.

The [[SCO Group]] distributes NeTraverse Merge 5.3, which supports their current products [[SCO OpenServer]] 5.x and [[UnixWare]] 7.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Xinuos, Inc. {{!}} Products {{!}} Merge {{!}} Merge_5 |url=http://www.sco.com/products/merge/Merge_5.3_US-7.html |access-date=2022-04-04 |website=www.sco.com}}</ref>