john@wa3wbu.UUCP (John Gayman) (01/20/88)
I just read a blurb in the latest issue of PC Magazine about a new
operating system called Wendin DOS. It is billing as a multi-user,
multi-tasking operating system for the 80286 and 80386 that is 100%
compatible with *all* exsisting MS-DOS programs and also breaks the
640K memory barrier. All for an un-heard of price of $99.00. Can this
be true ? Anyone else heard of or used this O/S ? It seems too good to
be true but if it is, I think O/S 2 can kiss it good-bye.
The blurb goes on to say that they also offer PC/VMS a VAX-like
operating system for the PC and PCNX, a Unix clone for the PC. Each of
these also sells for $99 and comes complete with source code. I'd be
suspicious if this were the April issue but it's only February. It sure
peaked my curiosity. BTW: Its listed under "Inside Track" in Vol 7 No 3
February 16, 1988 issue.
John
.
--
John Gayman, WA3WBU | UUCP: uunet!wa3wbu!john
1869 Valley Rd. | ARPA: wa3wbu!john@uunet.UU.NET
Marysville, PA 17053 | Packet: WA3WBU @ AK3P dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) (01/21/88)
In article <460@wa3wbu.UUCP> john@wa3wbu.UUCP (John Gayman) writes: > I just read a blurb in the latest issue of PC Magazine about a new >operating system called Wendin DOS. It is billing as a multi-user, >multi-tasking operating system for the 80286 and 80386 that is 100% >compatible with *all* exsisting MS-DOS programs and also breaks the >640K memory barrier. All for an un-heard of price of $99.00. Can this >be true ? I have Wendin's OS Toolbox, PCVMS, and PCUNIX. They are interesting to look at, and a fascinating example of what happens if one uses VAX/VMS as a model. (The versions I have date back to early 1987. Things might have changed since then.) They are great fun to hack around with and modify. But they are not, in my opinion, suitable for any realistic computing. Apart from the numerous bugs, there's also the problem of incompleteness. PCVMS, for example, provides no way through its system calls of seeking to the end of a file. (One has to know the file size in advance and then seek to that position, and there is no system call that tells one the file size.) However, most MSDOS system calls are trapped by these operating systems and (most of the time, excepting all the FCB calls and a few others) either passed on to MSDOS or emulated. They use MSDOS below them as a layer, so they are horribly slow. Wendin DOS appears to be an improved version of these, and it may not live on top of MSDOS. But given Wendin's track record of using VAX/VMS as a model and its buggy implementation, I would be careful. -- Rahul Dhesi UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!dhesi
karthur@codas.att.com (Kurt_R_Arthur) (01/22/88)
In article <460@wa3wbu.UUCP> john@wa3wbu.UUCP (John Gayman) writes: > > > I just read a blurb in the latest issue of PC Magazine about a new > operating system called Wendin DOS. It is billing as a multi-user, > multi-tasking operating system for the 80286 and 80386 that is 100% > compatible with *all* exsisting MS-DOS programs and also breaks the > 640K memory barrier. All for an un-heard of price of $99.00. Can this > be true ? Anyone else heard of or used this O/S ? It seems too good to > be true but if it is, I think O/S 2 can kiss it good-bye. I bought a "pre-release" version of Wendin Dos last year to participate in a "find the most bugs" contest. It is OK, but (at least the version I got - remember it was beta) not everything I had ran. These were all small, written to hardware programs that I use daily, so (because I didn't have the time I thought I would to find bugs) I ended up giving my copy away (ps: neither my friend or I won the bug contest). Wendin also sells an Operating Systems Toolkit (with source) to let you design your own OS. You can just provide a shell, or really hack away at the kernel! I think the idea is great, but Wendin (or anyone else, like PICK, THEOS or QNX) will never make more than a (comparative) pittance for their OS because IBM doesn't support them. IBM doesn't support a lot of OSs for several reasons, including: 1. IBM doesn't feel the OS will sell well. 2. IBM thinks it will encroach on sales of larger, more profitable systems. 3. IBM doesn't have an affiliation with the vendor. 4. The OS was developed (or largely influenced by) a mainframe or mini-computer vendor. If I am IBM, I don't want to sell a VMS look-alike, because the next time the customer buys a mini, they'll look a lot harder at VAXen to reduce training costs (and conversely, not look at my S/370 or System 3x). And...., when IBM doesn't support something in a market it dominates, almost no one will buy, sell or use that product, regardless of its technical ability. I mean, put yourself in the shoes of a MIS director, or small-business person: would you want to take a chance on something that by definition cannot be fully compatible (because IBM & MS won't give out all their secrets - any one of which they could decide to use at any time)? Or, look at a computer store manager: are you going to stock a program that most people have never heard of? or push it hard if you do? You'll incur a cost to your sales staff teaching them at least the basics of the system for demos, and leave yourself wide open to problems if the system doesn't work? Or, look at a developer: will you expend effort to support a trivial market- share OS? No, so the OS will never get that one application that forces people to buy the product. Remember a couple of axioms that most computer users abide by: 1. The OS should be as simple as possible (CPM & MS-DOS are load-&-go: you can tune them, but they're very simple to use and learn. UNIX is much more powerful, but a bitch for a non-DP type to learn & use: it's definitely not a load & go. 2. The OS is only there cause it's needed to run my application. If Lotus had decided to write 123 to IBM's flavor of CP/M in- stead of MS-DOS, Microsoft would be in the same boat as Wendin is now ( and DR would be in the driver's seat!). I'm sorry this kind of rambled, but I'm in stream of consciousness mode! To recap: yes, Wendin-DOS looks really great, but it will never kill OS/2. Kurt Arthur Software Services of Florida, Inc.
bhj@bhjat.UUCP (Burt Janz) (01/22/88)
In article <460@wa3wbu.UUCP>, john@wa3wbu.UUCP (John Gayman) writes: > > The blurb goes on to say that they also offer PC/VMS a VAX-like > operating system for the PC and PCNX, a Unix clone for the PC. Each of > these also sells for $99 and comes complete with source code. I'd be > John Gayman, WA3WBU | UUCP: uunet!wa3wbu!john > 1869 Valley Rd. | ARPA: wa3wbu!john@uunet.UU.NET > Marysville, PA 17053 | Packet: WA3WBU @ AK3P You do indeed get source code... for the utilities. You have to buy another $99.00 package to get the source to the kernel. Neither one compiled correctly using Microsoft C V4.0. I spent quite a lot of time on the phone with the folks at Wendin. For that matter, they used my system to test multi-user login via modem. It does really work. You need at least an AT at 10mhz to get PC performance, but you definitely can run more than one task at a time, shove tasks into the background, and have more than one user on the system at a time. I tested Wendin-DOS during their "you buy it for $20.00 and help us debug it" beta test. The only reason that I tested it was that they sent it to me for nothing. I no longer do business with Wendin, as I feel that charging customers for the beta version, asking for bug reports, and then charging them AGAIN for the FIXED version was a tacky business practice. BTW, their PC-UNIX was MUCH better than the VMS. And, the internal calls to the utilities match almost one-for-one with the VMS libraries. Burt Janz ..decvax!bhjat!bhj