sean@ukma.uky.csnet (Sean Casey) (11/20/86)
I called up Manx and asked them a few questions and asked them to send
me some more info. The lady on the phone was very polite, and knew what
she was talking about (I'm a unix hack - had a few years experience
coding C, mucking with system software, etc.). My overall impression
was very good.
I didn't ask her much, because the information they are sending me
contains many answers. The things I wanted to know right away were:
Q - Are there royalties for distributed binaries?
A - No.
Q - How many disk drives do I need?
A - One.
Q - How close to Unix "vi" is Manx vi?
A - Very close. It has the ex commands and regular expression features.
Q - Does it have graphics support?
A - No, but it supports calls to the XXXXX where XXXXX is some sort of
Amiga graphics library that I forgot the name of.
Q - Are Unix library calls supported?
A - Yes. Manx claims full Unix compatability, whatever that is.
Considering there are a zillion versions of /usr/lib/libc*, that's
a pretty heavy claim. On the other hand, they seem to be committed
to making it easy for you to interchange programs between Unix
systems and the Amiga. I've got about 34 megabytes of Unix C sources
sitting around, so thats good news to me.
Q - What kind of tech support do you offer?
A - A phone number from 9am-6pm M-F, and a bulletin board. The lady
claimed that the number is a service that does not expire.
Q - What about updates and bug fixes?
A - You can get a 1 year update contract for $100. With this, you get
any new releases for free. Once your year is up, you can get the
latest version and another 1 year contract for $100. It does not
matter how much time has passed since your contract ran out, or if
you ever purchased one to begin with. You can get this at any time
in the future for $100.
Q - Any guarantees?
A - The package comes with a 30 day money back guarantee. I did not
ask if this was a satisfaction type guarantee or a guarantee against
faulty software or other problems.
In addition, she said that the commercial version was available to
independent commercial developers (just say you are one when you order it)
for $100 less than the usual price.
I'm going to wait for the info, of course, but it looks awfully good to
me. There are reviews of the thing in November Byte and Nov/Dec Amiga
World. If I get it, I'll let you know what I think.
[No, I am NOT connected with Manx, or with this Universe in any
significant way.]
Sean
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sean Casey UUCP: cbosgd!ukma!sean CSNET: sean@ms.uky.csnet
ARPA: ukma!sean@anl-mcs.arpa BITNET: sean@UKMA.BITNETjmpiazza@sunybcs.UUCP (Joseph M. Piazza) (11/24/86)
In article <5143@ukma.uky.csnet> sean@ukma.uky.csnet (Sean Casey) writes: > >I called up Manx and asked them a few questions and asked them to send >me some more info. > .. >Q - How close to Unix "vi" is Manx vi? >A - Very close. It has the ex commands and regular expression features. > ... Did I miss something? It has s o m e ex commands and some don't work, in paritcular the S(ubstitute) command. Flip side, joe piazza --- Cogito ergo equus sum. CS Dept. SUNY at Buffalo 14260 (716) 636-3191, 3180 UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!jmpiazza CS: jmpiazza@buffalo-cs BI: jmpiazza@sunybcs GE: jmpiazza