In a message dated 10/25/01 2:15:45 PM Pacific
Daylight Time,
 dhquebbeman(a)theestopinalgroup.com writes:
  There were Altos' that ran MP/M-II, and
others than ran XENIX... ISTR
 that the 586 was the squarish-box that ran MP/M-II, while the other
 model that had a hi-techish, Datageneralish look to it ran XENIX.
 We had both...
 
 The Z-80 Altos was the 580. This was the same squashed hexagon design used in
 the 586, 786 etc. Since it was a multiterminal machine each terminal had it's
 own Z-80 IIRC. These ran CPM and MPM.
 The 586s were an 8086 16 bit designs. Most of the ones I saw ran Xenix.
 however I had a couple that ran MPM-II based on a version of Digital Research
 DOS-86, I can't remember what it was called.
 Most 586s were of the squashed Hex design that I think Doug is calling DGish.
 I do seem to remember the first 586s were shipped in a square box, a la the
 8XXX series. Of course my memory could be off, it has been a long time and I
 never saw one of those.
 Paxton
 Astoria, OR
 
Well, I can bracket the 586's O/S as the 486 ran CCP/M-86 and the 686
ran CCDOS.
                                                 - don