tim@nmtvax.UUCP (10/14/83)
I'm interested if anyone out there that actually reads this news group
could answer the following. Is the CPM-68k that I see advertised really
very useful? Is there very much/any software available on the market to
run under it? etc.
Also, the only computers I've run into in th market place based on the
68000 are very expensive. I'd like to know if anyone knows of any relatively
fair priced 68k systems that can actually be used as a system. Please, not
the motorola education board or anything like that. I'd be interested in
any thing that might require construction also if that would save money...
Thank you for your reply in advance (by net mail please),andree@uokvax.UUCP (10/20/83)
#R:nmtvax:-49900:uokvax:12700001:000:2436 uokvax!andree Oct 17 09:18:00 1983 I'm interested if anyone out there that actually reads this news group could answer the following. Is the CPM-68k that I see advertised really very useful? Is there very much/any software available on the market to run under it? etc. Useful? That question only you can answer. I think you can use it for various things - it's similar to the very useful (though ugly) CP/M-80, etc. As for software: You can buy Mince for it, G & G is talking about an F77 compiler, and I've been asked to port a LISP system to it. I plan on putting together CP/M-68K software for sale because I think it will have a large market base: not everybody can afford the hard disk Unix wants. I think a lot of these people will run CP/M-68K. Also, the only computers I've run into in th market place based on the 68000 are very expensive. I'd like to know if anyone knows of any relatively fair priced 68k systems that can actually be used as a system. Please, not the motorola education board or anything like that. I'd be interested in any thing that might require construction also if that would save money... The best thing I've seen is a `homebrew' system that looks like this: 1) S-100 box (anybodies) $500 2) 68K cpu, disk controller, I/O board (compupro) $1500 3) Memory (anybody BUT compupro) $700 4) A pair of drives (qume dt-8) $1300 5) A terminal (any cheap one) $700 (or less) 6) CP/M 68K from Compupro $350 This gets you a running 68K system for about $5,000. You can skimp on drives, memory, etc & buy one for about $4,000, but I wouldn't recommend it. Or you can wait awhile and buy the one-board systems that are going to appear. With those, you don't have the S-100 flexibility. The compurpro CPU board can be upgraded to a 68010/68451 system if you so desire. Thank you for your reply in advance (by net mail please), You're welcome. As a final note, I'd like to point out that Microware plans on announcing OS-9/68000 early next year. They are in beta testing with OEMs now (I hope), and the announcement of OS-9/68000 should be concurrent with the announcement of several systems in the $4-$6 K price range. I plan on going to OS-9 as soon as possible, as it will be a MUCH nicer environment than CP/M. If you're not familiar with OS-9, you can think of it as Unix with improvments so that it will run well on a floppy based system (and in less memory than CP/M-68K!). Luck, <mike
mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (10/21/83)
Nobody can afford the hard disk needed for UNIX, but yet the cheapest floppy based CPM-68K system you can put together yourself costs $5K? Now wait a minute. You can get a UNIX for the 68K from Fortune for $6K, or an IBM-PC-XT and UNIX for it for about the same price. And I've seen indications that within a year there will be UNIX systems, with a hard disk, for under $4K. Maybe even a LOT under $4K.
emjej@uokvax.UUCP (10/28/83)
#R:cbosgd:-46600:uokvax:12700002:000:315 uokvax!emjej Oct 25 13:02:00 1983 Will these be voice-coil or stepper motor hard disks? Even the cheaper hard disks don't transfer data fast enough to make Unix tolerable. James Jones (For references, see Dr. Robert Gammill's (sp?) paper in SigPC Notes, "Position Paper on Operating Systems for Personal Computers" is the title, I believe.)
andree@uokvax.UUCP (10/28/83)
#R:cbosgd:-46600:uokvax:12700005:000:776 uokvax!andree Oct 26 00:37:00 1983 No, the cheapest non-Unix 68000 system is NOT $5k. That was for a system with quality hardware throughout (if you consider the s-100 bus capable of supporting such). You can scrape almost 2K off of that by going to cheap components. (5 or 3" floppies, short bus, slow memory, etc). The point is that such a system would be bearable. The low end Unix systems I've looked at (Fortune, RS-16) were slow. Slower than my z80, in fact. This is due to the many trips that Unix takes to the disk. The cheap Unices were on cheap hard disk with stepper motors for seeking. A disk fast enough to support Unix well (voice coil motor) still costs about $4k to the end user. Of course, the 4.2bsd file system may fix that. If I can buy a 4.2 box for < $10K, please tell me where! <mike
andree@uokvax.UUCP (10/28/83)
#R:cbosgd:-46600:uokvax:12700006:000:1841 uokvax!andree Oct 26 08:51:00 1983 Here is something found in net.micro.6809 which gives several other good reasons for running os-9/68k as opposed to Unix. I would also like to point out that os/9 can be ported to existing hardware WITHOUT having to pay an arm and a leg for a source license. That's why I'm upgrading my z80 to a 68k os/9 system... /***** uokvax:net.micro.6809 / emjej / 8:47 am Oct 26, 1983 */ No, that's not quite it. OS-9 is a Unix-like OS that is designed with the personal computer in mind. (That and the unique, at the time, capabilities of the 6809.) For example, hard disks adequate for use as swap devices are *very* expensive (even now)--so OS-9 doesn't swap, since on a typical (affordable) micro there won't be a fvery fast hard disk. One won't necessarily have huge amounts of memory, so OS-9 uses the memory it has as well as it can (requiring machine-language programs to be position independent and re-entrant, so that only one copy of a program need be in memory at at time, making the shell as small as it is (they had to make a judgement call about what to leave in, but they crammed a lot into 1K (!!!)). This, along with rethinking of other stuff and not having the warts that came up during the evolution of Unix, has led to quite a clean OS. Indeed, not having memory management as a crutch has led to the memory module being in rather like a Multics segment. (It looks like it would work well as an implementation technique for CLU clusters/<name your favorite data abstraction language's corresponding facility>. OS-9/68K is largely written in C (the 6809 version is mostly assembumbler), so it should be fairly easy to port to other machines. (It will come in three flavors--Levels One and Two, corresponding to the 6809 Levels One and Two, and Level Three, for those with 68010 systems.) James Jones /* ---------- */