rshwake@irs3.UUCP (rshwake) (05/31/88)
Having recently encountered some rather positive reviews of the 6386 and/or its implementation of UNIX, I'm wondering if the operating system alone will work on other 80386 boxes. I'm currently Microport's V/AT on a Zenith 248, and have experience with AT&T's Simultask running on their now- abandoned 6300+. Simultask (version 2.5) is/was notably better than V/AT (version 2.3), thus my interest. Those of us who've encountered reliability problems with the older 6300 series, or who for aesthetic or economic reason would prefer different "iron" could certainly benefit from the flexibility. Ray Shwake R/S/X Technical Services
wmh@mtuxo.UUCP (01435-W.HYLAND) (06/07/88)
In article <398@irs3.UUCP>, rshwake@irs3.UUCP (rshwake) writes: > > Having recently encountered some rather positive reviews of the > 6386 and/or its implementation of UNIX, I'm wondering if the operating system > alone will work on other 80386 boxes. I'm currently Microport's V/AT on a > Zenith 248, and have experience with AT&T's Simultask running on their now- > abandoned 6300+. Simultask (version 2.5) is/was notably better than V/AT > (version 2.3), thus my interest. > > Ray Shwake > R/S/X Technical Services AT&T's UNIX System V/386 Release 3.1 system has been known to work reliably on competitive 386 AT class hardware notably the COMPAQ and BELL Technologies products. AT&T has not put this UNIX implementation through the rigorous test suite as had been placed on the 6386 though. For this reason and also because competitive manufacturers of hardware may in the future engineer revisions to their products which disrupt the compatibility they presently share with the 6386, AT&T will not warrant the operating system for use on non-AT&T equipment nor provide HOTLINE support.
rshwake@irs3.UUCP (rshwake) (06/08/88)
Bill Kennedy (ssbn!bill) was kind enough to respond to my original inquiry. Briefly, he reports that it both works, and works BETTER than Microport's 386 UNIX. Now, if only something could be done about the PRICE of the package. If the numbers quoted in the recent UNIX/World article are any indication, we can expect to pay some big bucks for Runtime/Development/Documentation and DOS-under-UNIX. Xenix is just as bad, and Microport is moving out of the low-cost UNIX market, to judge from their latest price list. Runtime under SimulTask, including HDB ran to only $199 or so. In a recent posting, Bill suggests that the .microport group could serve as a proper forum for ALL the UNIX/386 implementations. Given the time and bandwidth involved just to start .microport (as an offshoot of .xenix), I'll second that notion. A name change might be in order, but even lacking that, we got nowhere else to go. :-) Ray Shwake R/S/X Technical Services