romero@mind.UUCP (Antonio Romero) (04/06/88)
UnixWorld magazine's "product of the month" article for January 1988 was the Mega 2 ST running Idris as a five-user operating system. They described the introduction of Idris as follows: Atari Corp., previously best known for its contributions to entertainment and games computing, has made its first major foray into the business computing market, offering a five-user machine with 2 Mbytes of memory and a 20-Mbyte hard disk, running a Unix look-alike, at a sytem cost of under $2800. Atari has announced that Idris... and seven business software pachkages have been ported to Atari's ST and Mega computers. It's part of Atari's long-term strategy to enter the business market... Does this imply that there is now some kind of official connection between Atari and the makers of Idris, or some kind of official Atari endorsement of Idris as an alternative OS for the ST? (The article even directs inquiries about Idris on the ST to Atari, not to the makers of Idris...) Also: Can existing Atari applications be run under Idris or will they have to be ported? The article makes it sound like Unix applications will port easily but says nothing at all about current ST software. Anyway, that's it. I know this is probably old news, but while I've seen much talk of Idris I've seen nothing that suggests a relationship between Atari and Computer Tools International (makers of Idris) before running across this article... any clarification, Atari? Antonio Romero romero@psycho.princeton.edu PS-- the article also talks some about the Abaq and the 68030, but nothing that hasn't been said here already...
ftw@datacube.UUCP (04/07/88)
romero@mind.UUCP writes: > /* ---------- "Idris for the ST" ---------- */ > UnixWorld magazine's "product of the month" article for January > 1988 was the Mega 2 ST running Idris as a five-user operating system. > They described the introduction of Idris as follows: [_Unix World_ text deleted] > Does this imply that there is now some kind of official connection > between Atari and the makers of Idris, or some kind of official Atari > endorsement of Idris as an alternative OS for the ST? (The article even > directs inquiries about Idris on the ST to Atari, not to the makers of > Idris...) Unfortunately, the answer appears to be "no". Atari appears to have backed out of the deal. Idris for the ST is provided by Computer Tools International (See previous announcement posted here by CTI). > Also: Can existing Atari applications be run under Idris or will they > have to be ported? The article makes it sound like Unix applications > will port easily but says nothing at all about current ST software. At the very least, they would have to be recompiled. Anything that requires trap #1 is guaranteed to not work, because Idris uses trap #1 for system calls. > Anyway, that's it. I know this is probably old news, but while I've > seen much talk of Idris I've seen nothing that suggests a relationship > between Atari and Computer Tools International (makers of Idris) before > running across this article... any clarification, Atari? Sigh. > Antonio Romero romero@psycho.princeton.edu > PS-- the article also talks some about the Abaq and the 68030, but nothing > that hasn't been said here already... Farrell T. Woods Datacube Inc. Systems / Software Group 4 Dearborn Rd. Peabody, Ma 01960 VOICE: 617-535-6644; FAX: (617) 535-5643; TWX: (710) 347-0125 INTERNET: ftw@datacube.COM UUCP: {rutgers, ihnp4, mirror}!datacube!ftw "OS/2 -- Half an operating system"