ix264@sdcc6.UUCP (ix264) (06/12/86)
I am looking to buy a PC and am both poor and hopelessly
devoted to UNIX. I am also not a serious hobbyist, but a
mathematician looking for a usable tool for a single user.
Reliability and support are therefore important.
Salesmen tell me that it is possible to run Xenix on an
ATT 6300 (an 8086 machine). If true, this would be attractive
to me, since I really don't have the money for an AT clone I
think I can trust.
(1) Has anyone done this?
(2) Is it insane?
(3) Are there better ways to spend my small amount of money?
(4) Will I die of old age before medium-sized programs run?
(5) It is claimed that a hard drive can be shared by Xenix and
MS-DOS, with the same files available to software in either
system. Can this be true?
(6) If so, can I run MS-DOS or software from Xenix (e.g., can I
run Turbo Pascal programs in background)?
(7) What else do I need to know? (I live in a world of Suns,
Vaxen, and high-level languages; I've never really worked with
small machines. I know Xenix != UNIX4.2, but that is about all.)
I know this is not an ideal system, but repeat that I am a
single user without much cash.
Replies by mail are presumably most appropriate.
Tim McLarnan
ix264@sdcc6
Dept of Mathematics, UC San Diego
(619)566-6168 or 452-2540