alan@pmafire.UUCP (alan herbst) (05/11/89)
Does anyone have any experience with the QNX operating system by Quantum
Software Systems, Kanata, Ontario? Their ad states QNX is both multiuser
and multitasking and only uses 150K RAM and works on PC, AT, PS/2. It
supports 32 terminals with an AT, 150 tasks per AT, has C compiler, runs
DOS tasks, and costs $450. Sounds as if it may be good for a small
business or home use instead of UNIX or OS/2.
--
----------
Alan Herbst - WINCO Computer Engineering Group
208-526-3939, 0800 to 1615 MDT
Paths: ..!{uunet|bigtex}!pmafire!alan} | ..!ucdavis!egg-id!pmafire!alantrgauchat@rose.waterloo.edu (Terry Gauchat) (05/11/89)
In article <634@pmafire.UUCP> alan@pmafire.UUCP (alan herbst) writes: > >Does anyone have any experience with the QNX operating system by Quantum >Software Systems, Kanata, Ontario? Their ad states QNX is both multiuser >and multitasking and only uses 150K RAM and works on PC, AT, PS/2. It >supports 32 terminals with an AT, 150 tasks per AT, has C compiler, runs >DOS tasks, and costs $450. Sounds as if it may be good for a small >business or home use instead of UNIX or OS/2. >-- >Alan Herbst - WINCO Computer Engineering Group I was working for Noranda Information Services, and wrote an evaluation of the QNX Operating System as a part of my duties -- January of this year. The people at Quantum think that QNX is the best thing since the abacus, and are continuously improving it! It is lean and mean -- faster than anything available for the PC series. It supports 286 Protected and not. No special support for 386 yet. The shell, however, is not as UNIX-like as they may imply. The kernel is very small (150K) compared to UNIX, OS/2. It does very little. It handles MESSAGE-PASSING between all the tasks running. There are 4 main tasks which perform file-management, network communication, and task management. (Each of this is also very small and efficient). The message passing design of QNX makes it possible for nearly transparent network communications, including multi/parallel processing. The speed of the operating system makes it idea for real-time applications. One DOS session (quite compatible) may be run as a task under QNX, but memory limitations cause problems. Various third party software firms write stuff for QNX. Quatum gladly provides source code for the shell and drivers. They also have some excellent development and support tools. In conclusion, QNX is a wonderful OS, but is not backed by a big company like Microsoft or AT&T, and thus cannot have a major impact in the PC world. It is definately worth looking into, if you are not seeking DOS networking, have real-time or UNIX like applications in mind that don't require UNIX, or would like to impress your friends with an OS that can multi-task-user- process on a 4.77 XT! ----- I will gladly post/transmit(?) a copy of my 25 page non-technical evaluation if requested. ----- Terry Gauchat. MicroCosmic Computer Services.
frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) (05/12/89)
In article <13739@watdragon.waterloo.edu> trgauchat@rose.waterloo.edu (Terry Gauchat) writes: >In article <634@pmafire.UUCP> alan@pmafire.UUCP (alan herbst) writes: >> >>Does anyone have any experience with the QNX operating system by Quantum >>Software Systems, Kanata, Ontario? Their ad states QNX is both multiuser >>and multitasking and only uses 150K RAM and works on PC, AT, PS/2. It >>supports 32 terminals with an AT, 150 tasks per AT, has C compiler, runs >>DOS tasks, and costs $450. Sounds as if it may be good for a small >>business or home use instead of UNIX or OS/2. >>-- >>Alan Herbst - WINCO Computer Engineering Group > >I was working for Noranda Information Services, and wrote an evaluation >of the QNX Operating System as a part of my duties -- January of this year. > >The people at Quantum think that QNX is the best thing since the abacus, >and are continuously improving it! [a fair assessment of QNX deleted] >In conclusion, QNX is a wonderful OS, but is not backed by a big company >like Microsoft or AT&T, and thus cannot have a major impact in the PC world. > >It is definately worth looking into, if you are not seeking DOS networking, >have real-time or UNIX like applications in mind that don't require UNIX, >or would like to impress your friends with an OS that can multi-task-user- >process on a 4.77 XT! > >Terry Gauchat. >MicroCosmic Computer Services. First, I'll point out that a similar discussion has been going on in comp.misc.os for a while. Second, I just published a book on QNX, so I'm biased (although I do not work for Quantum; just a satisfied customer). Our consulting comapny has been using QNX for a couple of years, and it is hands down the best choice for a distributed, real-time system using PC-type machines (which is pretty much what Terry said). I just want to clarify a couple of points: 1. while a '386 version of QNX is not (yet) available, QNX does run very nicely on 386s (and 286s, both in protected mode) 2. it's true that the shell is frustratingly close to UN*X; a third-party Cshell is available 3. I wouldn't write Quantum off quite that quickly. They have over 75,00 systems installed world-wide, in some very major companies. As soon as I mentioned that I was *thinking* of writing a book, I got calls from France and Germany requesting copies (for both end-users and university courses). In the past week, I've gotten orders from Brazil and Switzerland. Quantum itself just finished constructing it's own building and is now adding to it! They're holding their second annual conference in Ottawa this year. On the technical side, I believe they're planning to conform to POSIX and will have a 'real-time' (small, fast, distributed) windowing system this summer. In other words, they're not sitting still and are quite capable of taking on the big guys. (IMHO) -- Frank Kolnick, consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X UUCP: {allegra, linus}!utzoo!mnetor!frank
trgauchat@rose.waterloo.edu (Terry Gauchat) (05/12/89)
In article <5000@mnetor.UUCP> frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) writes: > >First, I'll point out that a similar discussion has been going on in >comp.misc.os for a while. Second, I just published a book on QNX, so I'm >biased (although I do not work for Quantum; just a satisfied customer). [etc.] > In other words, they're not sitting still and are quite capable of > taking on the big guys. (IMHO) > >Frank Kolnick, I am glad to hear that there are some real QNX supporters out there among the 75,000 QNX purchasers. After I had played with QNX for a while, I said "great!, but now what?". An operating system is no good without a large software base. I attended an IBM presentation of AIX and thought "okay, POSIX, etc. -- we will be going UNIX soon!" Hearing that QNX is planning POSIX conformance is wonderful. I hope that Quantum advertises this fact -- they may end up being losers if they do not compete with marketing as well as technical expertise!!! ----> Anyway... I have received several requests for my informal non-technical evaluation of QNX. Please give me a few days to prepare it for transmission, and be advised that it is a very top-level review and may not be as useful as you think. -->Frank -- could you send me info on how to obtain a copy of your book? ...Thanks. Terry Gauchat MicroCosmic Computer Services.
larry@focsys.UUCP (Larry Williamson) (05/13/89)
In article <634@pmafire.UUCP> alan@pmafire.UUCP (alan herbst) writes: > >Does anyone have any experience with the QNX operating system by Quantum I used qnx for about 2 1/2 years at my previous employ. It was quite a good system. Fast, small, easy to use. Not quite unix, but there are quite a lot of similarities. It will not support 32 interactive users that are really doing anything, no more than unix or xenix on an AT can. But with the right smart card, (the intellicon-8 from Connect Tech Inc.) you can go a long way. I mention the Intellicon-8 only because its qnx drivers are amazingly good. They support most of the interactive command line editing right in the card. Qnx does not get any interrupts until 'enter' is pressed. Qnx does support an amazing number of tasks. It runs in protected mode on an AT. You don't get perfect task protection, but then the AT does not allow that anyway. The scheduling algorithm is different from unix in that a task of given priority will always run if ready if there are no tasks of a higher or equal priority. If two or more tasks have equal priority, they will all get equal share of the cpu (assuming they don't block on i/o or something). The scheduling is somewhat deterministic. This makes it good for real time applications. But what really makes qnx shine is the networking. Qnx was designed with the network in mind as an intregral part of the system. You can share more than just disks, but any hardware resource, including the cpu itself! And quite transparently too. The lan is token ring based arcnet. Extremely fast. The system that I worked with was a network of about 50 AT's and a couple of XT's. Most of the machines had no disk drives. They would boot from the network, get all their commands from the network, the user's home directories were scattered all over the (approx) dozen drives on the network. Tape backups were done from just two of the machines. You can execute commands on remote nodes, have stderr report to another remote node, have stdin read from yet another remote node and have stdout come to your own terminal. Tasks communicate with each other through a message passing mechanism. It is rather primitive, but extremely reliable. The first thing we did was write a non-blocking mailbox scheme that ran on top of the built in message system. (Patterned after Intel's RMX-86 mailboxes). This improved the functionality of the intertask communications quite a bit. The location of a task that you wish to communicate with can be kept transparent, ie the caller does not need to know that the receiver is on this or any other node. We found that with proper distribution of tasks across the network, we could quite easily improve the performance of the system. Although we were adding a network overhead on messages, with careful planning there would be less load on each cpu so that it could execute the appropriate tasks with less interference. And because the network is so transparent, you can move tasks around from node to node without any recompiles or relinks or edits, etc. Last but most important, Quantum's technical support is "second to none"! It was my misfortune to experience the extreme excellence of their support before I was exposed to the appalling state of affairs in the unix world. By comparison, you get NO support of any kind from any of the unix vendors I've met. Whereas, with Quantum, if you have a problem, they will bend over backwards to help you through it. There were times we would report a bug in the os and Quantum would have a new version, fixed for us to download the same day!! Though next day service was more common. If you have any specific questions, please feel free to contact me. Be aware though that I don't have much experience with the most recent release of qnx. There have been quite a few rather big improvements (along the line of the differences from V7 to R2 or from R2 to R3 of unix system V). All in all, I found qnx to be an excellent product to work with. -Larry -- Larry Williamson -- Focus Systems -- Waterloo, Ontario watmath!focsys!larry (519) 746-4918
dhesi@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Rahul Dhesi) (05/13/89)
In article <5000@mnetor.UUCP> frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) writes: >>>...costs $450. ... >Our consulting comapny has been using QNX for a couple of years, and >it is hands down the best choice for a distributed, real-time system... So far as I can tell, QNX costs $450 or so minimum. Could you, or somebody else, convince the company to sell it for $60 or so in a minimum configuration? At that price I would buy it just to experiment with it. At $450 or so I will wait until I *know* I need it, and that won't happen until *after* I have experimented with it. (And at that price I expect everything that a similarly-priced System V or Xenix package comes with, which includes make, sccs, uucp, C compiler and debugger, and hundreds of other utilities.) Let's remember MS-DOS's humble origin at $45 per copy (and it's still well under the $100 mark). -- Rahul Dhesi <dhesi@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> UUCP: ...!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!dhesi
trgauchat@rose.waterloo.edu (Terry Gauchat) (05/13/89)
In article <7190@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> dhesi@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Rahul Dhesi) writes: >In article <5000@mnetor.UUCP> frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) writes: >>>>...costs $450. >... >>Our consulting comapny has been using QNX for a couple of years, and >>it is hands down the best choice for a distributed, real-time system... > >So far as I can tell, QNX costs $450 or so minimum. Could you, or >somebody else, convince the company to sell it for $60 or so in a >minimum configuration? At that price I would buy it just to experiment An excellent suggestion -- it all depends, once again, on Quantums's marketing strategy. They may not wish every average user to give it a try -- that would make QNX a real MS-DOS threat! If they had a cheaper price, then with even more users, software producers (like Lotus, WordPerfect) would gladly prepare QNX versions of their software, thus eliminating common user complaints with respect to a new OS -- and in turn more people would buy QNX ... OS/2 has software company support, however, due to the influence of Microsoft and IBM. How much does IT sell for anyway? (I guess not too much, but machine upgrade requirements are a bigger discouragement than QNX's cost!) With a cheaper price, Quantum may not be able to provide their reputable super support anymore... .... P.S. Has anyone use UNIX WordPerfect yet? I am terribly curious! .... Terry Gauchat MicroCosmic Computer Services.
frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) (05/13/89)
In article <13776@watdragon.waterloo.edu> trgauchat@rose.waterloo.edu (Terry Gauchat) writes: >In article <5000@mnetor.UUCP> frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) writes: >> >>First, I'll point out that a similar discussion has been going on in >>comp.misc.os for a while. Second, I just published a book on QNX, so I'm ... Actually, that should be "comp.os.misc" >-->Frank -- could you send me info on how to obtain a copy of your book? > >...Thanks. > >Terry Gauchat >MicroCosmic Computer Services. I will, but I also posted a complete description (contents, etc.) to comp.newprod -- Frank Kolnick, consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X UUCP: {allegra, linus}!utzoo!mnetor!frank
carroll@s.cs.uiuc.edu (05/14/89)
Anyone tried to port the X windowing system to a QNX box?
wheels@mks.UUCP (Gerry Wheeler) (05/16/89)
In article <634@pmafire.UUCP>, alan@pmafire.UUCP (alan herbst) writes: > Does anyone have any experience with the QNX operating system by Quantum > Software Systems, Kanata, Ontario? I did some work for Quantum once, and used QNX for a couple of years. It is very good, with a couple of caveats. One is that QNX is close to Unix, but not quite. For example, the options to their commands are often different that Unix's. And if you're a programmer, their system calls are just close enough to be frustrating. However, I understand they are cleaning things up in this area. The second caveat is that there are few commercial packages available for QNX due to its low profile. However, since it will run most DOS programs (by running DOS as a QNX task), this may not be a problem. QNX has extremely good interrupt response, and is frequently used in machine controllers. It has very good networking capabilities. These are useful, because QNX is a message-passing system, and tasks can send messages to tasks on other nodes as easily as on the same node. Any device can be shared with any other node, including hard disks, modems, printers, etc., with little effort. This means that file servers can be set up easily, and they need not be dedicated. I have long thought that QNX would be ideal for setting up a multi-user bulletin board. -- Gerry Wheeler Phone: (519)884-2251 Mortice Kern Systems Inc. UUCP: uunet!watmath!mks!wheels 35 King St. North BIX: join mks Waterloo, Ontario N2J 2W9 CompuServe: 73260,1043 -- Gerry Wheeler Phone: (519)884-2251 Mortice Kern Systems Inc. UUCP: uunet!watmath!mks!wheels 35 King St. North BIX: join mks Waterloo, Ontario N2J 2W9 CompuServe: 73260,1043
stephen@ziebmef.uucp (Stephen M. Dunn) (05/19/89)
In article <634@pmafire.UUCP> alan@pmafire.UUCP (alan herbst) writes:
$
$Does anyone have any experience with the QNX operating system by Quantum
$Software Systems, Kanata, Ontario? Their ad states QNX is both multiuser
$and multitasking and only uses 150K RAM and works on PC, AT, PS/2. It
$supports 32 terminals with an AT, 150 tasks per AT, has C compiler, runs
$DOS tasks, and costs $450. Sounds as if it may be good for a small
$business or home use instead of UNIX or OS/2.
This reply comes from my brother, Andrew Dunn, who is an independent
software consultant in Brampton, Ontario:
I have been working with QNX for 2 years. We use it as a general-
purpose office automation and software development system and to control
shop floor processes in an electronic factory setting.
In its latest version, QNX (whether loaded from disk or across ARCNET-
based network) fits in 100-200K (depending on what tasks you run) on each
node, and all nodes have access (optionally) to the resources of any other
node. Terminals or other devices can be added to each node, either as user
terminals (i.e. supporting logins) or dedicated devices under the control
of other programs.
As well as supporting multiple users, multiple tasks per node are supported
on all versions, as well as SEND/RECEIVE/REPLY message-passing amongst tasks.
Programs can be written in C (using the compiler supplied with the
development system) or FORTRAN or dBASE (using third-party supplied
compilers). Also, code development packages such as PRO-C from Vestronix
ease development efforts on this system.
As far as supporting DOS, this is handled two ways. The DFS (DOS File
System) allows access to DOS disks and files as if they were QNX disks and
files. Also, on selected compatibles, QDOS allows MS-DOS 3.20 and PC-DOS
3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 to be run as a single task under QNX.
My experiences with QNX have been very good and I would heartily
recommend it. If you require more information, Quantum Software Systems
can be contacted at 175 Terrence Matthews Crescent, Kanata, Ontario. They
also have a bulletin-board/conferencing/update system ... contact them for
details.
Regards, Andrew
----------------
Any questions directed to my brother can be mailed to this account
(stephen@ziebmef.UUCP) and will be brought to his attention.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
! Stephen M. Dunn stephen@ziebmef.UUCP ! DISCLAIMER: Who'd ever !
! Take off to the Great White North eh, ya hosehead ! claim such dumb ideas? !
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------wnp@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Wolf Paul) (05/20/89)
In article <935@mks.UUCP> wheels@mks.UUCP (Gerry Wheeler) writes: >I did some work for Quantum once, and used QNX for a couple of years. >It is very good, with a couple of caveats. > >One is that QNX is close to Unix, but not quite. For example, the >options to their commands are often different that Unix's. And if >you're a programmer, their system calls are just close enough to be >frustrating. However, I understand they are cleaning things up in this >area. So, is MKS planning to port the Toolkit to QNX? that would resolve the problem of command options being different :-) ... Wolf Paul -- Wolf N. Paul * 3387 Sam Rayburn Run * Carrollton TX 75007 * (214) 306-9101 UUCP: {texbell, killer, dalsqnt}!dcs!wnp DOMAIN: wnp@killer.dallas.tx.us or wnp%dcs@texbell.swbt.com
dave@dms3b1.UUCP (Dave Hanna) (05/29/89)
In article <935@mks.UUCP> wheels@mks.UUCP (Gerry Wheeler) writes: >I did some work for Quantum once, and used QNX for a couple of years. >It is very good, with a couple of caveats. > >One is that QNX is close to Unix, but not quite. For example, the >options to their commands are often different that Unix's. And if >you're a programmer, their system calls are just close enough to be >frustrating. However, I understand they are cleaning things up in this ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >area. > -- > Gerry Wheeler Phone: (519)884-2251 I have about two weeks experience with QNX heading a project team implementing a communications program. My experience with it as a new user suggest that frustrating is not a strong enough word. It seems that every time I turn around, I'm bumping into a new feature and asking "Are they so incredibly stupid that they don't KNOW that there is a standard way of doing that, or are they so incredibly arrogant that they think their way is better than the rest of the world's?" They have enough of the library calls that you think you're going to be okay, then you run into totally illogical omissions (example, there is qsort, but no bsearch). Perhaps the greatest annoyance is their use of an ASCII Record Separator (RS, hex 1e) as a new line, in place of the good ol' Line Feed, \n, hex 0a. And an assymetric tty translation, such that you cannot send a file out over a serial port and receive it back and end up with files that compare! The performance appears to be there (it was chosen because it seemed to be the easiest way to keep up with a 19.2Kb input stream without flow control - on an 8MHz 286!), but it gives the impression that it was written by a bunch of hackers over-impressed with there own cuteness (example - the debugger has a command "Find And Fix Bugs" whose sole documentation says"This command should be used when a supervisor looks over you[sic] shoulder in the middle of a debugging session." When entered, the command responds "I see no bugs here."). I'm sure that, as I become more used to it, many of these petty annoyances will diminish. Right now, they are a royal pain. Dave Hanna -- Dave Hanna, Infotouch Systems, Inc. | "Do or do not -- There is no try" P.O. Box 584, Bedford, TX 76095 | - Yoda (214) 358-4534 (817) 540-1524 | UUCP: ...!killer!gtmvax!dave |