perl@rdin.UUCP (07/15/86)
I remember a few years ago reading about this "great" new operating
system called S-1 that was supposed to blow away UNIX and everything
else. I saw ads for it and read about it on the net. It was
supposed to be available for a given number of machines with
more ports planned. Whatever became of it? I haven't heard
a word about it in years. Was it really a hoax as some claimed?
Someone once said that for S-1 to have everything it claimed
they would have to have been raising programmers from birth for
this project.
Robert Perlberg
Resource Dynamics Inc.
New York
{philabs|delftcc}!rdin!perlfwb@siemens.UUCP (07/18/86)
> I remember a few years ago reading about this "great" new operating > system called S-1 that was supposed to blow away UNIX and everything > else. I saw ads for it and read about it on the net. It was > supposed to be available for a given number of machines with > more ports planned. Whatever became of it? I haven't heard > a word about it in years. Was it really a hoax as some claimed? They (Multi Solutions, Inc.) are still around. They are just down Rt. 1 from us. One of the groups here even had an evaluation copy for a while. I guess you could say that the ads were were typical of the software industry: they were announcing their development plans, not an existing product. MSI was just a little more ambitious in their plans than other companies. They do have a working OS which runs on a bunch of different boxes (mostly 68K, but also the IBM AT). They have compilers for SL (their system implementation language), and C. I don't know what other compilers they have. The C library has most, if not all, of the functions in the BSD 4.2 library. The editor is a clone of the IBM mainframe XEDIT. They might have one of the public domain emacs editors by now. About 1 year ago, I saw a demo of their networking capability. They were a little premature in scheduling that demo. I don't know how they are doing right now. There was an announcement in one of the freebie magazines I get which said that they had some contract with a Japanese firm. It seems to me that they are thrashing around waiting to find a market niche (or waiting for a market niche to find them :-). The chief architect of S-1 is an acquaintance of mine. I have great respect for his technical ability. I will reserve judgement on his marketing acumen. Fred ----------------------------------------------------- Frederic W. Brehm (ihnp4!princeton!siemens!fwb) Siemens Research and Technology Laboratories