jim@hoptoad.UUCP (04/20/86)
Low-cost UNIX has at last arrived! It is Microport's System V.2 for the IBM PC/AT. I have had my hands on a ver- sion of the system and it IS UNIX, though Berkeley desiderata such as C-shell, script, more (etc) are not there yet. The only thing I found broken was shell layering, which I think is vastly inferior to BSD job control anyway. Even so, there are up to four windows that can be selected, tasks started, and left to run. Microport advertises up to eight users, and I believe it if the PC clone has a fast disk and several meg of memory. The clone I tried gave me results from a "ps -ef" command almost as soon as I pressed RETURN. What is exciting about the Microport UNIX is its pricing schedule: Runtime System $159.95 Software Development System $139.95 Text Preparation System $159.95 Complete System Package $389.95 Berkeley Enhancements $99.95 Complete System, 3-8 users $454.95 These prices require a little decoding. "Runtime System" means the System V.2 shell (with functions), the utilities, but no compilers or n/troff. "Software Development System" includes C, F77, SCCS, make, and other goodies. "Text Preparation System" includes complete System V Release 2 DWB, though the drivers for ditroff are only the standard ones from Bell. Real UNIX comes in two flavors, the 1-2 user version for $389.95 and the 1-8 user version for $454.95. Rich Morin and I walked around the booths at the recent West Coast Computer Faire and calculated that a complete UNIX system with 40MB disk and 1MB RAM would have cost $2,600. That's putting UNIX within reach of a credit card purchase. I'm excited enough about Microport's UNIX that I am considering carrying the product in my Bookstore. The only really negative thing about the package is that the manuals are in the small format, and the type is really too small to read comfortably-- or is that a statement about my being 44? I believe that dirt-cheap UNIX is here, and that this is only the beginning. Unfortunately, the ad in last Sunday's "San Jose Mercury" for UNIX and C tech writers at Commodore-Amiga did not mean that they have wised up and ported UNIX to the Amiga, according to the manager I chatted up on the phone. Too bad. AT&T: (415) 626-7581 Snail: c/o Jim Joyce's UNIX Bookstore, 47 Potomac St, SF 94117
dan@prairie.UUCP (Daniel M. Frank) (04/21/86)
This message is being posted using Pnews (part of rn) running under Microport System V on a Compaq Deskpro 286. I would like to add some personal experiences to the other message. The Microport system is still in the beta stage, and is improving rapidly. Within a couple months, it should be ready, even for prime time. It is indeed REAL Unix, and bringing up such things as news and rn has been surprisingly easy. There ARE some gotchas and problems, though. DOS file transfer is not available yet. Neither are eight sector floppy drivers, and the drivers that exist are extremely slow (the hard disk driver is ok, though). Huge mode compilation (individual data structures > 64K) is not going to be supported in any forseeable century. sdb refuses to debug anything whose name space exceeds 64K. Support has been excellent. I have been able to talk to the people who write the code, when necessary. Bug fixes have been provided promptly for many of the problems, via Federal Express. Microport is in the process of bringing a support organization up, and seems to be doing pretty well. This has to be the best deal in software today. Wait until after the official release date (I wouldn't look for it, really, until June) unless you like to find and stomp bugs, but if you have a need to bring up a reasonably priced Unix workstation, this can't be beat. -- Dan Frank ... uwvax!geowhiz!attpcrn!prairie!dan -or- dan@caseus.wisc.edu
sean@ukma.UUCP (Sean Casey) (04/24/86)
IBM ought to get someone to port 4.2/3 BSD to the 286. I can think of a WHOLE LOT of people that would buy PC-ATs just for the BSD, me included. Sean -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sean Casey UUCP: cbosgd!ukma!sean CSNET: sean@uky.csnet University of Kentucky ARPA: ukma!sean@anl-mcs.arpa Lexington, Kentucky BITNET: sean@ukma.bitnet