kevin@ncspm.UUCP (06/03/87)
Well, I guess that I have received all the information I am going to about
Simultask on the 6300+, so here is the summary of what I got.
First of all, I got more complaints about the 6300+ itself than I did about
Simultask. These complaints can in two varieties: 1) 16-bit slots not AT
compatible, forcing the purchase of the AT&T Memory card, which is expensive.
2) Hard disks are hard to change, because of limited choices in the BIOS
ROM. [ I personally think there ought to be a way to work around this using
a software format program, with drivers for Simultask, Anyone know of such
a thing? ].
The overall feeling for the operating system itself was very possitive, it
runs "real" System 5.2 Unix, although not as fast as the mini at work, but
then I did not pay as much for the 6300+ as the office paid for the mini.
The biggest surprise for me was that people found the Simultask implementation
much cleaner than Microport, which surprised me since Simultask is Microport
with the DOS stuff added by Locus Computing.
Included are the responses I got.
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From: ...!seismo!wlbr!wlbreng1!att6300!rich
The UNIX System 5.2 running on the AT&T 6300+ is called
"Simultask". The real name of that OS is "Merge/286". Merge is
sold by Locus Computing Inc. of Santa Monica, CA and AT&T
resells Merge as Simultask. Merge/286 is a combination of UNIX
System 5.2.0 and MS-DOS 3.1. Locus develops the MS-DOS
capability under UNIX which includes the drivers which they
place in the kernel. They in turn OEM their DOS drivers to
Microport. Microport sells their UNIX/DOS system under the name
"TeamDos". Given this set of circumstances, where do you suppose
Locus gets their UNIX system from ? If you're saying
"Microport?!" to yourself you're right. They OEM their products
to each other and they each sell their own version of
(basically) the same system. The difference is that Locus is
more concerned about quality. They are VERY MUCH more concerned.
The quality of about everything that I've seen come out of
Microport is roughly 70 % of production quality or the
equivalent of a first beta release. So, I would estimate that
Locus cleans up the bugs from their system before they turn it
over to AT&T. I wish Locus would sell their UNIX back to
Microport so that they could have a higher quality product!
However, a flaw with Simultask is the same of Microport, i.e. it
only supports small and large model. This may not be a big
factor for you however. I had a 6300+ for about a month or so
on loan from AT&T to pound the life out of. It held up damn
well! I ported a grunge of Sys5 code to it to see if the
compiler would die. I usually end up finding "non-
professionalisms" in the code (grrrrr...large model pointers; 16
bit integers...grumble). As I said, however, the quality of
Simultask is a lot better. And the DOS option is really neat!
There is a program, I think it's called "lyrmgr" (layer manager)
that gives you a menu to select either a DOS shell or a UNIX
shell. First, you select DOS (it gives you a C> prompt; the
"virtual" DOS hard disk) and then you hit the "sys req" (hot)
key and it redisplays the lyrmgr menu. Now you select a UNIX
shell (it gives you a $ and an indication at the bottom of the
screen that you are in a subshell). Now by hitting the hot key,
you can toggle back and forth between DOS and UNIX. Pretty
slick. The problems that I discovered were that the system
didn't appreciate programs that didn't do BIOS calls (ill-
behaved). The system would hang, but by hitting ctrl-alt-del,
the system would return you to UNIX.
All in all, Simultask is a good system. This is because it was
written explicitly for the 6300+. In fact, I'm running UNIX
System 5.2.0 on my 6300 which I'm writing this correspondance on
(that's right, an 8086 machine). The OS is called IN/ix and is
produced by Interactive Systems Inc. of Santa Monica, CA. It
also was written explicitly for the 6300, therefore, it works
really well. Have fun with micro-UNIX.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: wmh@mtuxo.UUCP (w.hyland)
AT&T has announced a new version of the PC6300 PLUS UNIX
Operating System with Simul-Task known as Version 2.5. This
new version contains numerous enhancements over the previous
Version 2.0 system. For example, Simul-Task will now support
MS-DOS 3.2 in addition to 3.1. MS-DOS applications running
under Simul-Task may now make full use of the Intel Above
Board and the AT&T Display Enhancement Board. Enhancements
to the UNIX system include improved performance through
better memory management techniques and expanded swap space,
kernel level support for Starlan, and full support of
Hayes-compatible modems including the AT&T 4000 series
modems. Version 2.5 has also improved the reliability of
print spooling, floating point emulation, file system
backups, named pipe communications between UNIX and MS-DOS
tasks, clock performance, and bad track handling.
The Version 2.5 software maintains full compatibility with
the existing Version 2.0 UNIX Software Development Set and
with the applications already developed to UNIX on the PC
6300 PLUS. Moreover, software written to UNIX on the PC 6300
PLUS will be binary compatible with AT&T's UNIX System V
Release 3 Operating System being developed for 80386-based
workstations providing users with a smooth upgrade path and
protection of software investments.
Version 2.5 software upgrades are available to existing
customers at a promotional price of $99. plus tax until July
31st, 1987. After this date, the full list price of $295
will apply. For details on this promotion, please contact
the PC6300 PLUS UNIX/Simul-Task Upgrade Coordinator at 1-
800-432-6600.
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From: ...!seismo.CSS.GOV!uunet!rosevax.Rosemount.COM!dave (Dave Marquardt)
I ran Simultask for a while, and the biggest problem with it was that it really
ate up the system. I only had 1 megabyte of RAM installed, so that might
have something to do with it.
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From: ...!seismo!stc-auts!kak (Kris Kugel)
There is an overhead penalty for using Simultask - the Norton Utilities
benchmark rates the cpu 8. runnining DOS only and 6. running DOS under
simultask. This matches my perception of actual speed. (numbers represent
multiples of old pc speed, so bare 6300 is 8 times as fast as pc)
The UNIX in general is dissappointing; it seems to be both slow, and
has some nasty marketing characteristics:
* NO C compiler/lex/yacc/lint/ld etc.
* NO nroff/troff/ditroff/man
* no /src (well, I wasn't really expecting this one....)
* 63 i/o buffer limit (we'll see the significance of this later...)
Most of the software packages are fairly expensive (~$400)
so you have to spend a considerable amount of money to get
a reasonable system, and the documentation is split up the same
way -- for example, the "find" manual pages is missing, and is
in a manual you have to order separately (along with who knows
what else).
The hardware itself, or at least the version I got, has a fairly slow hard
disk (read "standard for dos, slow for UNIX), and if you partition it
for 5 megs for dos (recommended), there is barely enough room for anything
(I bit the bullet and got the Programmer's Development package, and
without much other stuff on the system, I've only got 3 megs left)
and the disk access seems *slow*. You can't really speed throughput
up much, because there is a 63 buffer limit.
some normal hardware improvements are expensive for the following reason:
the box is smaller than a normal AT, so some boards don't physicaly fit,
and the buss connectors are in different locations than on regular AT's.
the memory boards that AT&T sells are more expensive than the normally
available boards for the AT (~$500/2 meg board with 500k installed).
The DES board, which should allow you to improve the access to the
high-resolution graphics monitor, can't be accessed under UNIX in the
current release. (at least the hotline claims it can't be)
Simultask/Dos incompatibilities: utilities that color the screen
don't always work right. the norton sa (screen attributes) utility
can't set the screen color, and you can't run FANSI-CONSOLE during
Simultask. (unix vi has snow due to the way the system handles the vidio)
Good things:
The machine seems like it was designed to be a very good
machine to run DOS. it has a nice keyboard, monitor, and
floppy drive (writes 512 that can be read on pc's, AND 1.2meg)
the Simultask allows you to access the UNIX filesystem while
under DOS, and some other stuff like that.
The hotline support that comes with the machine (one year)
seems to be pretty good.
Notes: Supposedly, AT&T is comming out with a new release of the OS.
I would hope that it would fix the buffer problem and DES board problem,
as well as some DOS incompability problems. I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND
calling AT&T and finding what the upgrade cost will be before buying the
release that I have - it may be worth your while to wait.
[ There is a new version of Simultask, see above ]
additional comment: less my last comments be taken too negatively,
I really like having a REAL system V instead of some artificial unix.
I am mostly dissappointed because I bought the system early, had to
wait for everything, paid very high prices for everything, and
expect to have to spend a lot more money get the system to where
I want it.
having invested over $10k for the system
(with printer and modem and AT&T boards)
I was kinda expecting more....
perhaps with the "new, MUCH cheaper prices" and the new os the system
will have a lot better proformance/cost ratio for new buyers.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: ...!seismo!sun!texsun!pollux!killer!aquinas!sean
Simultask on the Plus is quite an interesting setup. You can invoke
DOS to run as a background process under Unix, and switch back and forth be-
tween the two operating systems with the Msg Wndw key. When you're in the
DOS window, the Plus behaves exactly like an MS-DOS machine; you can set up
and use config.sys, autoexec.bat, memory-resident programs, even install RAM
disks. The only real problem is that it's a memory hog. 1 mb is barely
enough RAM to accomodate both Unix and DOS at the same time. If you plan
to use any DOS applications that require more than 256k, you'll probably
want to add memory (another 512k or 1mb) for best results. This leads to
my A-Number-1 gripe about the Plus....
Adding RAM is very expensive. The 16-bit expansion bus requires
that you use AT&T-proprietary 16-bit cards. AT-style 16-bit cards are
*NOT* compatible. The last time I checked, AT&T wanted $695 for the card
with 512k RAM. I haven't really checked around that much, so I don't know
for sure if it can be had anywhere else any cheaper. Another problem is
hard disk space. Unix reserves part of the 20 meg for bad track handling,
which leaves you with about 18 mb useable disk space... then the operating
system files take another 7 mb or so; almost half the disk space is gone
before you install any applications of your own! Replacing the 20 meg
with a bigger disk ain't easy, either. Unix needs to find the Hard Disk
Parameters in the motherboard BIOS, and the motherboard BIOS only supports
5 hard-disk types larger than 20 mb (to be specific: CDC Wren [30 mb],
Tandon and Seagate ST4051 [40 mb], Micropolis 1325 [67 mb], and Miniscribe
6086 [80 mb]). On the positive side, the HDU controller (WX2) will support
two hard disks.
As I said earlier, Unix with Simultask is fantastic, but adding
the RAM and changing hard disks is a pain! If I had lots of money I
wouldn't mind, but computers are more or less just a hobby for me, and
I can't justify spending so much on it.
--
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Kevin D. Bond uucp: ...!mcnc!ncsuvx!ncspm!kevin
Domain: kevin@ncspm.ncsu.edu internet: kevin%ncspm@ncsuvx.ncsu.edudan@prairie.UUCP (06/04/87)
Very odd, all this talk about Microport and the 6300+. I'll try to
make some sense of this, as best I can:
My understanding is that Microport Unix and 6300+ Unix are both
descended from a single port of System V, called SV/286, which was
done by Interactive (I think). In particular, limitations in the
compiler descend from that port. SV/286 was written for the Intel
310. Microport took it to the PC/AT and compatibles, while AT&T
independently ported it to the 6300+.
The DOS/Merge software was written by Locus for the 6300+, and
is sold by AT&T for that machine. DOS/Merge was then rewritten by
Locus for Microport Unix. Apparently, the AT lacks some hardware
support for the Merge software which the 6300+ possesses.
AT&T and Microport Unix are object code compatible. AT&T has
updated and replaced several utilities, e.g. HoneyDanBer UUCP,
and may have tidied up other programs a bit more. Microport has
had their hands full trying to support the AT compatibles, and has
concentrated more on the drivers.
I want to stress that these two Unices are siblings. The Unix
that runs on the 6300+ is NOT Microport Unix.
--
Dan Frank (w9nk)
ARPA: dan@db.wisc.edu ATT: (608) 255-0002 (home)
UUCP: ... uwvax!prairie!dan (608) 262-4196 (office)
SNAILMAIL: 1802 Keyes Ave. Madison, WI 53711-2006rkh@mtune.ATT.COM (Robert Halloran) (06/05/87)
In article <463@prairie.UUCP> dan@prairie.UUCP (Daniel M. Frank) writes: > My understanding is that Microport Unix and 6300+ Unix are both >descended from a single port of System V, called SV/286, which was >done by Interactive (I think). In particular, limitations in the >compiler descend from that port. SV/286 was written for the Intel >310. Microport took it to the PC/AT and compatibles, while AT&T >independently ported it to the 6300+. The port was done under subcontract from Intel to Digital Research. The people involved later left DRI and formed Microport, which is why they claim such familiarity with the SysV/286 base port. Bob Halloran, Consultant, ATT ISL ========================================================================= UUCP: rutgers!mtune!rkh DDD: (201)251-7514 eve ET Internet: rkh@mtune.ATT.COM USPS: 19 Culver Ct, Old Bridge NJ 08857 Disclaimer: My opinions are my own. Quote: "No matter where you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Banzai