bill@ssbn.UUCP (Bill Kennedy) (06/12/87)
I got my upgrade application and sent off for it. For those of you who
did not see the prior postings, you must call the Simul-Task Upgrade
Coordinator at 800-432-6600 and when they tell you to dial, press "2" and
ask the human who answers for the PC 6300 PLUS Upgrade Coordinator. They
will then mail you an upgrade request form which you must send back along
with diskette 1 of 7 from your Foundation Set originals.
This is the text of the announcement that accompanies the kit. I thought
it might be helpful for those unsure of whether or not to spend the $99.
It's long...
GREATER COMPATIBILITY
Version 2.5 Simul-Task has been engineered to better support an even greater
array of popular MS-DOS applications and PC compatible hardware.
For example, Version 2.5 Simul-Task now supports both MS-DOS 3.1 and 3.2.
Under MS-DOS 3.2, a user may configure the system with 3.5 inch floppy disk
drives and multiple 32 megabyte MS-DOS partitions on a hard disk. Upgrading
to MS-DOS 3.2 is easy under Version 2.5 Simul-Task. A user need only install
MS-DOS 3.2 on top of the existing MS-DOS 3.1 and the installation procedures
will automatically update the MS-DOS partition on the hard disk.
The new release of Simul-Task will fully support the Intel Above Board [I'll
bet you need the ROM upgrade though] and those MS-DOS applications which make
use of the expanded memory capability provided by this hardware.
Support in MS-DOS for the AT&T Display Enhancement Board has been added under
Simul-Task. Users may now run sophisticated applications such as Paint Power
II which make use of the enhanced graphic capabilities of this hardware.
UNIX support for Starlan networking products has been added.
IMPROVED EASE OF USE
With Version 2.5 Simul-Task users will discover significant improvements in
ease of operation. For example, file system pathnames may be specified in
either the UNIX or MS-DOS format when entered in the config.sys file or the
easy-to-enter forms presented by the OFFICE user interface.
MS-DOS programs need not be linked to alias files within /osm/lbin directory
any more. With Version 2.5 Simul-Task, MS-DOS programs may be interspersed
anywhere within the file system.
Simul-Task no longer requires the user to invoke the dosupdate procedure
when adding new hardware. MS-DOS drivers referenced in the config.sys file
are now loaded at runtime.
With the addition of a new option in the Software Setup menu, MS-DOS appli-
cations can now easily be removed from the hard disk [Yeahhhhh!].
IMPROVED EFFICIENCY AND FLEXIBILITY
UNIX performance improvements have been achieved by reducing process conten-
tion through better memory management techniques and expanding swap space.
A system's optimal swap space is now calculated at the time of installation
according to the size of both the UNIX and MS-DOS partitions and the size of
the hard disk.
Hayes compatible modems and the software switchable AT&T 4000 series modems
are better supported [that, alone is worth the $99!]. Hayes compatible
modems can be operated such that UNIX will recognize the true status of the
carrier detect signal thereby improving the function of UNIX communications
utilities such as cu, ct, uucp, and electronic mail.
A number of customer requested changes have also been added. Examples of these
are improvements to the clock performance, bad track handling, named pipe
communications between UNIX and MS-DOS tasks, file system backups, and floating
point emulation.
INVESTMENT PROTECTION
Version 2.5 UNIX maintains full compatibility with the version 2.0 Software
Development Set and the numerous applications already written to UNIX on the
PC 6300 PLUS. Moreover, applications written to PC 6300 PLUS UNIX will be
binary compatible with the UNIX System V Release 3 Operating System being
ported to 386-class machines.
END OF ANNOUNCEMENT Various trademark credits for above
If you have gotten this far you *must* be interested in the PC 6300 PLUS!
You may have seen some of my postings about hard disks and such, I have
gotten a lot of benefit from the ones I have read. Is there any interest
in starting an interest/users' group? Even though we own "orphans", there
are a lot of them out there and I sure like mine... I'll volunteer to
coordinate the group and I'll sure defer to anyone else who would like to
do it. I have every piece of documentation on the PLUS, hardware and soft-
ware, and a fair amount of experience with it (mostly pleasant). For what
it's worth, I'm also a VAR and can compete fairly and favorably for small
acquisitions. I'm not *advertising* that, but if you have trouble getting
a "frammis" for under $500, I may be able to help. Please let me know what
your interests are. Oh, I have also ported a fair amount of stuff from the
net ported to the PLUS and checked out. The best mail paths to me are:
ihnp4!petro!ssbn!bill or sun!texsun!rrm!ssbn!bill. If those aren't good for
you you can use cbosgd!ssbn!bill but I would discourage that one because it
may not be permanent and that connection has been in and out.
--
Bill Kennedy {cbosgd | ihnp4!petro | sun!texsun!rrumcse, f-A
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