keithe@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson) (10/12/89)
In article <1989Oct10.052428.21628@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> wang@cs.uiuc.edu (Eric Wang) writes:
<I have a need for some serious computing power, and would like to ask for
<wisdom from the Net:
<
<a) I am looking for a more powerful operating system that meets the following
< "requirements":
<
< 1) It must be fully DOS-compatible. I intend to use it to run
< programs written for DOS.
<
< 2) It must support context-switching. Concurrent processing is not
< a requirement, but would be a nice bonus. (I'm sure I could find
< some way to use it, but it's not essential to what I have in
< mind.)
<
< 3) It must allow TSRs to be loaded and used normally within each DOS
< environment. (This precludes Concurrent DOS, to the best of my
< experience.) That is to say, each DOS must be able to support
< its own local set of TSRs. Of course, TSRs need not cross over
< into other DOS environments, and in fact, they had better not.
<
< 4) It must be intelligent about graphic modes. I intend to use it to
< switch between a VGA graphics program and a normal text editor,
< and it's no use to me if it gets confused as to what mode the
< monitor should be in.
<
< 5) Finally, it should be relatively inexpensive. SCO Unix V/3.2 is
< listed at $3500; that's expensive. DesqView/386 is less than $200;
< that's not expensive. I'll go as high as $500 for a really good
< product, but I'm hoping to keep my expenses down.
<
VM/386 satisfies all these requirements with the _possible_ exception of
number 4; and I say that just 'cuz I haven't really wrung it out thru it's
VGA modes. But I'll be very surprised if there are any problems.
Number 3 is the real reason I'm interested in VM/386 over Desqview and
Windows - each virtual machine is started with its OWN copies ov a
config.sys and autoexec.bat files. That means I can have one machine set up
to do networking (and all the memory PC-NFS gobbles up), another with the
MKS shell and environment, another for communications, and on and on (I've
got 8 megabytes of RAM so I can support quite a number of virtual machines).
VM/386 is available from IGC , Santa Clara, CA. Call (408)-986-8373, ask
for Sherryl (sp?) and tell her I sent you. (It probably won't do any good
but knows?) I don't recall the price, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper than
UNIX (and it really IS a DOS environment.) It's in the $250 range.
kEITHe