[comp.sys.ibm.pc] Merge386 - Mixing DOS and UNIX

mrh@camcon.co.uk (Mark Hughes) (12/01/88)

Do you have any experience with a product called Merge386 from Locus?

It includes UNIX and MS-DOS for $795 and allows DOS to run as a UNIX process.

I shan't bore everyone with all the details, as it is reviewed in the current
issue of Byte, but it looks very nice, allows mixing of MS-DOS and UNIX
commands and shared file space.

I'd be interested to hear of any first hand experience, and in particular
comments on its use of memory. The Byte article says that you need at
least 2.5M, but does not say how useful it is at this level. The article
goes on to describe benchmarks with up to four DOS processes (running
concurrently under UNIX), but does not say how much RAM was needed to achieve
this.
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bill@cosi.UUCP (Bill Michaelson) (12/06/88)

In article <2171@titan.camcon.co.uk>, mrh@camcon.co.uk (Mark Hughes) writes:
> 
> Do you have any experience with a product called Merge386 from Locus?
> 
I'm running the Merge386 product under Microport UNIX.  I think it's a good
product generally, but I am experiencing problems with serial communications
which you should be warned about.  Simply put, don't expect to be able to
run the usual terminal emulators or file transfer programs that you may be
used to using in the MS-DOS environment.  I don't think they'll work properly.

Memory-wise, I don't know what to tell you.  I've got 4MB, and I can run
multiple MS-DOS sessions concurrently with no problems.  I suspect this is
a practical minimum for acceptable performance, but I have not done any
exhaustive analyses, so don't take my word as gospel.

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