alex@mks.UUCP (04/02/87)
In article <2596@watdragon.UUCP>, absary@watdragon.UUCP (Al Sary) writes: > >I agree, except that I recommend purchasing the MKS Toolkit from > > > > Mortice Kern Systems, Inc. > > 43 Bridgeport Road East > > Waterloo, Ontario > > Canada N2J 2J4 > > 519-884-2251 > > > >which contains not only vi, but a Korn-ish shell (did I really write > >that?!), awk, sed, cpio, dd and much, much more. Price is in the > >US$140 range. > > > >I wouldn't be without the MKS stuff on a PC. And their license is > > I agree; it is a very nice set of programs, plus Korn shell is quite nice > (beats the hell out of MS-DOS). > > Get this: vi catches ^Z, and the job is stopped, with fg used for restart > (I don't think this is very safe though; at times this feature seemes to > cause problems). Most of the problems that this cause are due to lack of memory - actually it is very reliable. Can't run it from the Korn shell though because the Korn shell may need to grow and there is this programme sitting right above the Korn shell where it wants to grow to. > > >On a scale of 1 to 10 I give MKS a 9. They only lose 1 point because > >I can't figure out how to send things to the printer without > >invoking command.com - and staying there while the printer finishes. > > I discovered the same problem; I don't know how to get around it either. > > I am not sure I would scale it at 9 for reliability just yet. Our > system seems to die quite frequently without much reason. The ps > command also shows some strange memory allocations at times. I have We'd appreciate it if you would phone our technical support department -- we haven't had any reports of `strange memory allocations'. Or for that matter `system seems to die quite frequently without much reason'. If you are having problems we would like to try to sort them out. We do indeed know of several problems in early Korn-shells that went out - anybody who phones will get sent a later release with these problems fixed. [We would send to everybody automatically except that with so many utilities in the toolkit, a majority of people probably don't even use the shell, but just vi, or just awk or such.] > MKS version 2.1, and hoping that version 2.2 (available soon hopefully) > will fix some of the problems. It is also advertised to have job > control feature. Hang on - who advertised that? To have the job control feature requires writing multi-tasking which requires all kinds of ms-dos violations. In all the 70-odd different .exe's you get with the toolkit we violate ms-dos only for 1) fast screen updates in vi by bypassing bios and direct access to the screen, 2) access to the hardware timer-chip in the profiler and time commands, 3) fg and :stop in vi. To set the record straight on what will be in the next release of the toolkit, version 2.2 it is as follows: pr fold expand unexpand uname env deroff fmt pack unpack pcat new AWK -multi-dimension arrays, symtab, garbage collection. New SH - vi&emacs editing mode and many small things VI - ega-support for >24 lines login, init, passwd Date for release 2.2 is not set yet - we hope to go to beta release at the end of this month, with real release by June. But no promises! Alex White Please feel free to direct toolkit questions to ...watmath!mks!toolkit
amir@booboo.UUCP (Amir Majidimehr) (05/20/87)
In article <242@mks.UUCP>, alex@mks.UUCP writes: > In article <2596@watdragon.UUCP>, absary@watdragon.UUCP (Al Sary) writes: > > >On a scale of 1 to 10 I give MKS a 9. They only lose 1 point because > > >I can't figure out how to send things to the printer without > > >invoking command.com - and staying there while the printer finishes. > > > > I discovered the same problem; I don't know how to get around it either. > > > > I am not sure I would scale it at 9 for reliability just yet. Our > > system seems to die quite frequently without much reason. The ps > > command also shows some strange memory allocations at times. I have > We'd appreciate it if you would phone our technical support department > -- we haven't had any reports of `strange memory allocations'. Or for > that matter `system seems to die quite frequently without much reason'. The release 2.0 (or whatever came out in January) was a fiasco. I bought the package for "vi" and the *promissed* ksh. The vi had serious bugs that were mostly fixed in 2.0 but as I mentioned in another article, it added new ones. > If you are having problems we would like to try to sort them out. > We do indeed know of several problems in early Korn-shells that went out - > anybody who phones will get sent a later release with these problems fixed. > [We would send to everybody automatically except that with so many utilities > in the toolkit, a majority of people probably don't even use the shell, but > just vi, or just awk or such.] How could you send out the ksh in the state that it was in? I have *never* had a buggier piece of software in my life (public domain included)! It crashed the machine every four or five commands (either hangs or refusing to execute any commands). I finally lost so much work that had to revert back to command.com. Now I see that you have a new version but didn't even bother to send a notice for updates much less an updated disk? What kind of customer support is this? Granted, your people fixed the problem with vi when I called them. But there is more involved in trying to keep your customers happy. Your package would have been excellent had it not been for these problems. > > MKS version 2.1, and hoping that version 2.2 (available soon hopefully) > > will fix some of the problems. It is also advertised to have job > > control feature. > Hang on - who advertised that? To have the job control feature requires > writing multi-tasking which requires all kinds of ms-dos violations. In What? why would having a built-in "fg" or "jobs" command violate MSDOS? (Well, maybe fg but certainly "jobs" could be done as an internal command). > all the 70-odd different .exe's you get with the toolkit we violate ms-dos > only for > 1) fast screen updates in vi by bypassing bios and direct access to the screen, Have you used the latest version of vi yourself? Try doing a ^E or ^Y (to scroll up or down). It takes at least a second on an AT and it can not keep up with the repeat rate of my keyboard. The old version worked in real-time. What gives? > To set the record straight on what will be in the next release of the toolkit, > version 2.2 it is as follows: > pr fold expand unexpand uname env deroff fmt pack unpack pcat > new AWK -multi-dimension arrays, symtab, garbage collection. > New SH - vi&emacs editing mode and many small things > VI - ega-support for >24 lines > login, init, passwd I wish you would spend more time fixing useful commands than coming up with yet another "awk" command. Do you really think people use awk more than vi and ksh? By the way, "vi&emacs" editing are an essential part of ksh. How could you omit them in the first version and still call it ksh? > Date for release 2.2 is not set yet - we hope to go to beta release at the > end of this month, with real release by June. But no promises! > And let me guess. You are going to charge for this release, right? -- Amir H. Majidimehr Gould Inc, Computer Systems Division {sun,pur-ee,brl-bmd}!gould!amir
heather@blia.BLI.COM (Heather Mackinnon) (05/21/87)
In article <335@booboo.UUCP>, amir@booboo.UUCP (Amir Majidimehr) writes: > In article <242@mks.UUCP>, alex@mks.UUCP writes: > > In article <2596@watdragon.UUCP>, absary@watdragon.UUCP (Al Sary) writes: > > The release 2.0 (or whatever came out in January) was a fiasco. I bought > the package for "vi" and the *promissed* ksh. The vi had serious bugs that > were mostly fixed in 2.0 but as I mentioned in another article, it added > new ones. I use MKS's VI and also have used PC/VI and find MKS' to be faster and more UNIX-like. I have version 2.1d of the toolkit. I have yet to find a bug in version 2.1d and I spend considerable time editing 500+ source files. No one would call me a vi novice, either. I've been using vi on UNIX systems since 1980. > How could you send out the ksh in the state that it was in? I have *never* > had a buggier piece of software in my life (public domain included)! It > crashed the machine every four or five commands (either hangs or refusing > to execute any commands). I finally lost so much work that had to revert > back to command.com. The ksh does have some severe limitations, primarily in the history substitution and alias expansion areas. I have yet to have the ksh crash my AT or behave strangely. > And let me guess. You are going to charge for this release, right? I find this gentleman's tone offensive. For the record, I have no connection with MKS other than as a satisfied customer. They're selling a lot of software for the money and I would urge anyone who wants the UNIX tools grep, vi, sed and so forth to purchase it. The interactive shell is not nearly as useful as a real UNIX shell, therefore I don't often use it. I do, however, use grep, sed, find, vi, cat, more, ctags, mv, cp, rm, cd, nm, tee, tail, awk, join and sort. For the tags alone, MKS's product is much more useful to me than ol' PC/VI. Expecting a real shell to run on top of DOS for a minimal amount of money is asking a lot. Heather Mackinnon Senior Software Engineer Britton-Lee, Inc.
davidsen@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP (William E. Davidsen Jr) (05/27/87)
In article <335@booboo.UUCP| amir@booboo.UUCP (Amir Majidimehr) writes: |In article <242@mks.UUCP|, alex@mks.UUCP writes: || In article <2596@watdragon.UUCP|, absary@watdragon.UUCP (Al Sary) writes: || | |On a scale of 1 to 10 I give MKS a 9. They only lose 1 point because || | |I can't figure out how to send things to the printer without || | |invoking command.com - and staying there while the printer finishes. || | || | I discovered the same problem; I don't know how to get around it either. || | || | I am not sure I would scale it at 9 for reliability just yet. Our || | ... stuff ... | |The release 2.0 (or whatever came out in January) was a fiasco. I bought Because it wasn't bug free? | | ... more stuff deleted ... |How could you send out the ksh in the state that it was in? I have *never* |had a buggier piece of software in my life (public domain included)! It ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ lucky you! |crashed the machine every four or five commands (either hangs or refusing |to execute any commands). I finally lost so much work that had to revert |back to command.com. There were (still are) a few sequences which cause problems, and it doesn't LIKE to run on a fast system (don't ask me why a command processor is timing sensitive, it is). ... stuff deleted ... | || To set the record straight on what will be in the next release of the toolkit, || version 2.2 it is as follows: || pr fold expand unexpand uname env deroff fmt pack unpack pcat || new AWK -multi-dimension arrays, symtab, garbage collection. || New SH - vi&emacs editing mode and many small things || VI - ega-support for |24 lines || login, init, passwd | |I wish you would spend more time fixing useful commands than coming up with |yet another "awk" command. Do you really think people use awk more than ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ not another, just complete yes. |vi and ksh? By the way, "vi&emacs" editing are an essential part of ksh. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Your opinion only. Many people want the loop constructs, etc, and find that the editing is nice, but not essential. I would use ksh even if it had no interface but to read command files. I can do things I couldn't do in command.com with any trickery. |How could you omit them in the first version and still call it ksh? | || Date for release 2.2 is not set yet - we hope to go to beta release at the || end of this month, with real release by June. But no promises! || |And let me guess. You are going to charge for this release, right? Did you expect that buying one copy would give you a lifetime supply? With rare exceptions all companies have to charge for updates. ... more electrons saved here ... -- bill davidsen sixhub \ ARPA: wedu@ge-crd.arpa ihnp4!seismo!rochester!steinmetz -> crdos1!davidsen chinet / "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward"
neighorn@qiclab.UUCP (06/02/87)
In article <6067@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> davidsen@kbsvax.steinmetz.UUCP (William E. Davidsen Jr) writes: >There were (still are) a few sequences which cause problems, and it doesn't >LIKE to run on a fast system (don't ask me why a command processor is timing >sensitive, it is). >-- >bill davidsen sixhub \ ARPA: wedu@ge-crd.arpa > ihnp4!seismo!rochester!steinmetz -> crdos1!davidsen What's this about not liking to run on a fast system? I have been using the program on a 80386 machine running at 16 Mhz for over 6 months and have yet to encounter an error that could not be duplicated on a 4.77 Mhz PC/XT. Could you elaborate on the problems you have encountered with fast systems? I would like to try to them out on the systems I use (PC/XT, AT, AT clone at 10 Mhz, and '386). Mucho Thanks. -- Steven C. Neighorn tektronix!{psu-cs,reed}!qiclab!neighorn Portland Public Schools "Where we train young Star Fighters to defend the (503) 249-2000 ext 337 frontier against Xur and the Ko-dan Armada"
amir@booboo.UUCP (06/02/87)
In article <2692@blia.BLI.COM>, heather@blia.BLI.COM (Heather Mackinnon) writes: > > > In article <2596@watdragon.UUCP>, absary@watdragon.UUCP (Al Sary) writes: > > > > The release 2.0 (or whatever came out in January) was a fiasco. I bought > > the package for "vi" and the *promissed* ksh. The vi had serious bugs that > > were mostly fixed in 2.0 but as I mentioned in another article, it added > > new ones. > > I use MKS's VI and also have used PC/VI and find MKS' to be faster and more > UNIX-like. I have version 2.1d of the toolkit. I have yet to find a bug > in version 2.1d and I spend considerable time editing 500+ source files. > No one would call me a vi novice, either. I've been using vi on UNIX > systems since 1980. No question about the completeness of vi. It has the "feel" of Unix vi and that's the reason I bought it. However, just because you didn't find any bugs it doesn't mean it didn't have any. Example: When I recieved the new version (2.0), I quickly started using it. I edited a 1000+ line program for a about few minutes adding about 20 lines. Then I went to the top line and opened a line (with shift-o). The machine crashed with divide-by-zero error. I was able to repeat this once but not anymore. Now, this was 2:00 in the morning and I had to figure out those 20 lines again. Not exactly a fun thing to do. I consider myself a heavy-weight vi user and have been able to get the vi to mess up a line that could only be fixed with a redraw. The problem is not as bad as the old version but it is still there. > > How could you send out the ksh in the state that it was in? I have *never* > > had a buggier piece of software in my life (public domain included)! It > > crashed the machine every four or five commands (either hangs or refusing > > to execute any commands). I finally lost so much work that had to revert > > back to command.com. > > The ksh does have some severe limitations, primarily in the history > substitution and alias expansion areas. I have yet to have the ksh > crash my AT or behave strangely. Who cares about the limitation. The ksh flatly didn't work. Simply typing "alias" would list the aliases and then hang the system. I wouldn't call this a limitation. It is an outright bug! > > And let me guess. You are going to charge for this release, right? > > I find this gentleman's tone offensive. For the record, I have no > connection with MKS other than as a satisfied customer. They're > selling a lot of software for the money and I would urge anyone who > wants the UNIX tools grep, vi, sed and so forth to purchase it. The > interactive shell is not nearly as useful as a real UNIX shell, > therefore I don't often use it. I do, however, use grep, sed, find, > vi, cat, more, ctags, mv, cp, rm, cd, nm, tee, tail, awk, join and > sort. For the tags alone, MKS's product is much more useful to me > than ol' PC/VI. I am sorry that you get offended so easily. You simply haven't got the extensive experience that I have with this product. You got the latest and geatest version of the package that "seems to work" better than what I have. I used the version 1.X and 2.0 and the company has made no attempts to notify my of any updates. The doc that I got with the 2.0 release clearly hinted at an update charge for future release of the product. How can they charge for something that never worked to begin with? > > Expecting a real shell to run on top of DOS for a minimal amount of money > is asking a lot. > Let me give you an example of the problem I had with version 2.0. I had a vi suspended in the background with lots of unsaved changes. When I tried to do an "fg", the shell refused to execute it and simple gave me the prompt back (it had done that on a number of other occasions). The only choice that I had was to reboot the machine and loose all of my changes. When you have deadlines to meet, this the last thing you need. I do not flame a product lightly. I have lost days of work due to bugs in this package. The latest version may be better but since the company did not have the courtesy to send me an update notice, I'll never know. Please note that I have no problems with the functionality in the package. It is by far the best Unix environment on the PC. Why can't they just spend some time fixing these bugs and estabilishing a better customer support service? -- Amir H. Majidimehr Gould Inc, Computer Systems Division {sun,pur-ee,brl-bmd}!gould!amir
amir@booboo.UUCP (06/02/87)
In article <6067@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>, davidsen@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP (William E. Davidsen Jr) writes: > |How could you omit them in the first version and still call it ksh? > | > || Date for release 2.2 is not set yet - we hope to go to beta release at the > || end of this month, with real release by June. But no promises! > || > |And let me guess. You are going to charge for this release, right? > Did you expect that buying one copy would give you a lifetime supply? > With rare exceptions all companies have to charge for updates. > Sure. But the version (2.0) of the toolkit did not have a working version of ksh (as admitted by the poster from MKS). I bought the package for vi and ksh. I got a vi that mostly worked and ksh and was not operational at all. I expect to get a product that works when I pay for it. If you buy a radio and it doesn't work after 10 minutes don't you expect a new (or repaired) one? I am not looking for more functional version -- just one that works! Apparently version 2.1 does have a ksh that doesn't have major bugs but the company has not even notified me of its existance (I am registered user). Do they expect me to call them (in Canada) every day to check??? -- Amir H. Majidimehr Gould Inc, Computer Systems Division {sun,pur-ee,brl-bmd}!gould!amir
davidsen@steinmetz.UUCP (06/03/87)
In article <475@qiclab.UUCP> neighorn@qiclab.UUCP (Steven C. Neighorn) writes: |In article <6067@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> davidsen@kbsvax.steinmetz.UUCP (William E. Davidsen Jr) writes: | |>There were (still are) a few sequences which cause problems, and it doesn't |>LIKE to run on a fast system (don't ask me why a command processor is timing |>sensitive, it is). |>-- |>bill davidsen sixhub \ ARPA: wedu@ge-crd.arpa |> ihnp4!seismo!rochester!steinmetz -> crdos1!davidsen | |What's this about not liking to run on a fast system? I have been using |the program on a 80386 machine running at 16 Mhz for over 6 months and |have yet to encounter an error that could not be duplicated on a 4.77 Mhz |PC/XT. Could you elaborate on the problems you have encountered with fast |systems? I would like to try to them out on the systems I use (PC/XT, AT, |AT clone at 10 Mhz, and '386). Mucho Thanks. When I run ksh on my GV386 (16 MHz, 0w/s) I get an occasional burp which hangs the system. It has to do with either "do something and cd" or "cd and do something" sequences, and doesn't happen every time. I have never seen it on an XT (real IBM). A friend of mine who is getting beta test versions has a 12MHz 0w/s AT clone, and he reports that there are hangs at 12MHz, none a 8, none at 1w/s. I have a good line to MKS, but I can't report a bug I can't reproduce. At least I know it's not my machine (or Murphy strikes again) since it happens on two machines of different brands. At the moment I put cd on a line by itself. |-- |Steven C. Neighorn tektronix!{psu-cs,reed}!qiclab!neighorn |Portland Public Schools "Where we train young Star Fighters to defend the |(503) 249-2000 ext 337 frontier against Xur and the Ko-dan Armada" Disclamer: this is not a knock of the product which I considered so good that I bought a copy with my own money. -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {chinet | philabs | sesimo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
alex@mks.UUCP (06/04/87)
We have never distributed a release 2.0 toolkit. If you have a set of documentation out there saying 2.0 or a set of floppies saying 2.0 I would be mightily surprised and some royal screwup occured. Don't complain about phoning Canada. Its no more expensive than anywhere calls in the US. More importantly, we do accept collect calls and have never refused one. We have sent as of yesterday notice of release 2.2 to all registered users of the toolkit. Do you honestly expect us to notify all such people on EVERY bug? The toolkit 2.1 contains something like 70 different executables, 2.2 has over 80. Virtually nobody out there uses all of them. We get people who buy and just use awk. Or just Vi. Or just the shell. Or just grep and diff and sed. I would suspect that only 10-20% of users actually use the shell. Our policy on bugs is that if you find one, call our technical support and we'll send you *free* a fixed version. Look at the policy of some other companies - I was looking at Phoenix's the other day - it told me the FIRST person to find and report a given bug would get a free update. I.e. Future people finding it would have to pay an extra $50 to get the upgrade.
amir@booboo.UUCP (06/12/87)
In article <271@mks.UUCP>, alex@mks.UUCP writes: > We have never distributed a release 2.0 toolkit. If you have a set of > documentation out there saying 2.0 or a set of floppies saying 2.0 I would > be mightily surprised and some royal screwup occured. > My error! I checked my doc and to my surprise it is 2.1d! How could it be that other people have the same version but theirs works? Don't you not change the revision number when you add fixes? If not, why did your posting mention "that some earlier versions had bugs"? (2.1d was the first version that ksh). > Don't complain about phoning Canada. Its no more expensive than anywhere > calls in the US. More importantly, we do accept collect calls and have > never refused one. I guess you don't work for a company that has a switchboard. To make that collect call, I have to call our operator to get me the AT&T operator and then I have tell them to make the call for me. Not exactly the same as picking up the phone and dialing an 800 number. > We have sent as of yesterday notice of release 2.2 to all registered users > of the toolkit. I just got your 2.2 notice (two weeks after this discussion started). It costs $45 to get an update to something that never worked to begin with (ksh). I refuse to pay it! > Do you honestly expect us to notify all such people on > EVERY bug? The toolkit 2.1 contains something like 70 different executables, > 2.2 has over 80. Virtually nobody out there uses all of them. Not every bug. Only the ones that make the program usable! Every program in the package works resonably well (and some of them better than original Unix versions). I would still be happy if you never updated them. My only problem is with ksh that kept crashing my machine and the one illusive bug in vi which causes "divide by 0" traps. > We get people who buy and just use awk. Or just Vi. Or just the shell. > Or just grep and diff and sed. > I would suspect that only 10-20% of users actually use the shell. Well, I use vi/sh/ls/grep/diff the most. If you look at the frequency of commands used on Unix systems (in program development), these will rank much higher than awk and sed. In all honestly, I am sure that there are people that use awk. I simply got the impression that you were spending all of your resources *enhancing* awk when you had a shell that was full of bugs. Don't you not consider bug fixes more important than enhancements (after all the awk program worked)? > Our policy on bugs is that if you find one, call our technical support > and we'll send you *free* a fixed version. Look at the policy of some > other companies - I was looking at Phoenix's the other day - it told me > the FIRST person to find and report a given bug would get a free update. > I.e. Future people finding it would have to pay an extra $50 to get the > upgrade. Did Phoenix document their policy? You sure didn't. Where in the manual did you mention anything about the free fixed versions? If you did, where is mine? When I reported the bug with vi, I was told I had to wait for the next update to get it. No mention of simply fixing the problem and sending it on a floppy. I was sent the next update (2.1d) but that was three months later. I had to fix my filesystem with chkdsk every night due to that bug. Had I known your policy I would have demanded a fix right then. As I have mentioned in all of my postings, your package is really one of the best out there. The number of utilities supplied are really beyond what one would consider possible on MSDOS. Why you let a few major bugs in your ksh and vi ruin the image of the product is byond me. I do appologize to the net for boring everyone with *my* problems. If nobody else is having problems, then they must have improved the quality of their software. This will be my last posting on the subject. My mail address is listed below for anyone intrested in discussing the matter further. Thank you for your patience (souds like the wine cooler commercials!). -- Amir H. Majidimehr Gould Inc, Computer Systems Division {sun,pur-ee,brl-bmd}!gould!amir