wang@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Eric Wang) (10/10/89)
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.
Given these requirements, can any of you suggest any alternatives to DOS?
I'm open to reviews, flames, comments, comparisons, and whatever else helps
me to decide which one to buy. Please send e-mail; if there's sufficient
response, I'll summarize and post. Thanks in advance.
b) Can anybody give me a feel for how much RAM costs these days? I hear
lots of talk about decreasing prices, but haven't heard any solid figures
to back them up. All I want to know is whether RAM prices are still
exorbitant, or only outrageous. I am specifically interested in 80 ns
DRAMs, in either 256K or 1M sizes, both single-chip and 36-chip lot
prices. Last I heard (at the beginning of this year), RAM of this sort
was $433 per megabyte (which is 9 chips). Since then, I've heard of
4 MB and a 32-bit RAM card for $1000, which is better, but still more
than I can pay offhand. My problem is that, the way my motherboard is
set up, I have to replace all 36 chips at once, so I can have either
1 MB (which I've got now) or 4 MB, but no intermediate steps in between.
The alternative is to buy a 32-bit RAM card, then populate it with
chips. This is also OK, especially if I can proceed in smaller, more
affordable increments.
Thanks in advance for any light you can shed. Again, e-mail is preferred;
I'll summarize and post the results if there's enough responses.
Eric Wang
wang@cs.uiuc.edu