mjranum@gouldsd.UUCP (Marcus J. Ranum) (06/23/86)
Are there other people out there who are interested in getting those nifty UNI* tools running on IBM/Klone machines ? Surely I am not the only one who has occasionally longed for "awk" (or a decent shell) I propose a mutual aid society of PC users. Certainly we might have some problems sending source across the net, but maybe there are those among us who have ported UNI* compatible utilities. I have a kind of "sed" that is not bad. (if interested, mail) I have recently hear rumors of UNI* kernels for PC's ? shells ? stuff like that ? I think it's time that maybe we come out of the closet and admit that we have PC's but try to make the best of our situation. If there is interest in this, or if you have any UNI* tools you've ported, drop me a line. If there's enough interest in this, maybe we can follow this up by assembling some diskettes on a stamped-self-addressed basis. -m ranum SnailMail: 6335 64th ave, apt #1 Riverdale, MD 20732
johnl@hammer.UUCP (John Light) (06/24/86)
You've got the right idea, but the wrong implementation. Except for the lucky few, running real Un*x on a personal computer is a luxury of the future. The only alternative should not be living with just PCDOS. There is a middle ground. I don't think that "committeeware" will fill the need. Feel free to pursue that course, but don't lose sight of the other alternatives. Good software systems, even more than individual pieces of software, come from a unified vision. One choice for a more powerful environment for a PC is the Percent package from Thompson Automation. Instead of throwing out PCDOS, it makes the best of a weak environment. Percent provides much of the best of the Un*x environment without losing anything important in the DOS world. Instead of COMMAND.COM, you get a shell that is a superset of the Bourne Shell, with additions like aliases and history. The programs you run are the same PCDOS applications that you run now. Or you can run any of the 20 or so Un*x-like utilities that are provided in Percent. The designer's vision shows in the clean way all the pieces work together. I have also heard that Wendin's PC/UNIX does something like this. And a product out of Canada, the MKS Toolkit, provides a very complete set of utilities. I think all of these products cost about $100. This is not exhorbitant when you compare value for dollar paid with the rest of the software you are running. (You did pay for it didn't you?) Instead of wasting time chasing "scatterware", let's encourage these attempts to save us from PCDOS by trying them and talking about them. Maybe the best hasn't been written yet. John Light tektronix!hammer!johnl P.S., I have no financial interest in any of the above concerns, but I am a friend of Pat Thompson of Thompson Automation.
mjranum@gouldsd.UUCP (06/26/86)
> I don't think that "committeeware" will fill the need. Feel free > to pursue that course, but don't lose sight of the other alternatives. > Good software systems, even more than individual pieces of software, > come from a unified vision. The beauty of UNI* is the extravagant number of nifty tools that are available to the user. I personally do not want a full-blown UNIX pc. (for many reasons, not least of which is that I have access to real UNIX so why bother?) My posting was an attempt to encourage users who have ported the more useful tools (sed, vi, awk, yacc, lex, gakk, choke, wheeze, etc) that will run on a PC under an MSDOS environment. Since pc's do support pipes and such, it is a shame not to take advantage of them. I realize it is unrealistic to expect UNIX to run on a 64K micro, and Mess-Dos is a good OS for a small machine. On the other hand, how many times have you wanted nifty unix tools like(lengthy list of names) ? At present, I have been assembling a list, and am trying to assemble actual source/exe/etc of a large number of nice toys that I will then make arrangements to propagate. "committeeware" is a good word for it, but as long as I can type "make" and have things happen, I'll be happy. > > I have also heard that Wendin's PC/UNIX does something like this. And > a product out of Canada, the MKS Toolkit, provides a very complete set > of utilities. I think all of these products cost about $100. This is > not exhorbitant when you compare value for dollar paid with the rest of > the software you are running. (You did pay for it didn't you?) Yes, I paid my 100$ and bought PCUNIX. I have a super XT I build with 640K ram that runs 2.8X the speed of an IBM. Running PCUNIX it still crawls. Obviously PCUNIX is for an AT with a patient owner. It also has an annoying tendency to hang at inconvenient times, or otherwise die. My main reason for getting PCUNIX was to get thier sh source, among other things. It's a good idea, but I think it needs work before people can take it seriously. Anyhow, I repeat the call: those of you with neat tools who are willing to disseminate them, drop me a line, tell me what you got, and at least we'll have a chance of having our PC look less brain-damaged. Marcus J Ranum. "I don't care if my floppies are only 5 1/4" - I have *TWO*!!" -- *All opinions expressed aren't even mine, let alone those of Gould, Inc.*