I recently became curious about history of modern operating systems. Since the best way to learn is to see yourself - I would like to ask:
Is there a way to download and install Unix System III on a modern laptop? Preferably without emulator.
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Probably not, you will probably even have problems with some emulators. I think it would lack support for most of the hardware in the laptop (or emulated). – Henrik supports the community Jul 01 '22 at 11:38
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I’m aware of two versions of Unix based on System III, available on PCs of the time: PC/IX and Xenix 3.0. Both of these are closely tied to the hardware they were developed for: they need a BIOS to boot (recent laptops no longer support this), they rely on PC-XT-style drive controllers (for floppies and hard drives), and they probably would have difficulty dealing with a modern CPU (see the well-known compatibility issues in the older Xenix 1.0 to get a feel for what might go wrong), let alone the amount of memory and storage available on your laptop.
PC/IX and Xenix 3.0 aren’t as well-studied as Xenix 1.0 and Xenix System V, but given the difficulties involved in running those versions of Xenix even under emulation, it’s highly unlikely that PC/IX or Xenix 3.0 would work as-is on your laptop with no emulation.
PCE is known to run PC/IX, that would be the easiest way to get a PC-specific System III environment up and running nowadays.
Another solution would be to run PDP System III under emulation; see Where can I get the original Unix? for details.
Stephen Kitt
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Even SCO V Unix that implements more "modern" disk controllers, has problems running in contemporary and modern hw, and needs patches...afaik, only VirtualBox runs it, and more probably due to collateral effects of being plagued with bugs implementing I/O devices. – Rui F Ribeiro Jul 01 '22 at 12:09