jas@dit.upm.es (Jose Ramon Alonso Sotorrio) (04/26/89)
This afternoon I have attended an SCO conference here in Madrid.
It was titled 'Open Desktop', I think this of general interest,
so here are is my $.02 worth of impressions from it.
(insert chance to press 'n' here)
--
For those that live in character enviroments, Open Desktop is the
parcel made by joining:
- AT type 386 pc's.
- SCO Unix V/386 3.2
- Network services: BSD 4.3 compatable tcp/ip, sockets, NFS.
Lan Manager compatable.
- X-windows 11 (Xsight)
- Open Software Fundation's Window Manager, OSF/Motif
- C-ISAM and SQL integrated manager.
- DOS-OS/2 cross developement libraries.
OD is available as different versions:
- Single user runtime OD.
- Multi user runtime OD
- OD for developers.
I won't go into Open Desktop detail here, brochures should
be available from SCO. But for those of you that know
what it is all about, here are some quotes about it.
The conference was held by Steve Prentice (sp?), Market Dvlp. Mngr.
at SCO. There where some 60 attendants, software developers,
VARs and resellers. Not really 'techy', but more a presentation.
So some ideas from the talk and questions after it:
- Workstations is where most of the excitement. And PC get closer
or even higher performances (ie, MIPS) at a lower cost-->
merging of both technologies on (what he called) Desktop
Computers. Hi wkstation performance, low pc cost.
- This is an evolutionary product, as opposed to revolutionary.
It is not new, just binded together for the first time.
- It will consist of:
- SC UNIX V/386 Rel.3.2
- SQL by Relational Tech. Inc (of Ingres fame)
- C-ISAM manager.
- TCP/IP + NFS + Msdos file on unix filesystems (he said 'xenix
filesystems' :-)
- OSF/Motif, based on H.P. and DEC work, provides 'look and
feel' of (guess who...) Microsoft's Presentation Manager.
- X windows
- Locus merge 386 for Msdos integration.
- very rich toolkit.
- availability. It shall be available as
- Single user Wkstation.
- Optional multiuser.
- Optional Developement System. (Libraries, dvlp. tools)
For end users: September-October.
For developers: end of this month. (That is now...)
And now for the developers stuff. Some of you may remember a posting
to the net with SCO's developers support program, which ended saying
something like
'Not Available Outside North America'
well, this is why: this is an European Open Desktop Developer Programme.
It costs 2500 pounds sterling. Another option, the Open Desktop
SoftTech support agreement is available for 1500 p.s., which
covers support til 31-Dec-89.
This support will be given by various means (email mentioned) from
London (SCO's quoted working force there was 162 people.)
And post-speech question:
(These are NOT exact quotes!)
Q- How about the Motorola procesor family?
A- Yes, there's a wide installed base, but I can'y give any
schedule of support.
(We all understood that Motorola's chips were not in
SCO line of bussiness. Not a good question, perhaps...)
Q- And what of the 80286? At least as an X-client?
A- Well... it could come to be an X-server (I think he reversed
terms here) of Xwindows, but never under Open Desktop.
Open Desktop is 32 bits software, for the 386 and 486 when
available.
Q- International character set support? Continue with mapchan et al?
A- Yes, uniform internal representation, which can be mapped
differently on individual channels when necesary.
(This is what mapchan alredy does. Uhmmm...)
Q- Are MultiScreens still supported under 3.2?
A- Yes. 3.2 has ms on the console AND on standar serial terminals.
And this was it. I had to leave as soon as it ended, so I missed
the 'after-talk'. Tomorrow I'll go again, SCO Comms: networks, lan's, SNA,
Token Ring, TCP/IP, NFS, OSI etc. by Pedro Beitra, from SCO.
DISCLAIMER: I do this because my religion allows me to. I have
no afiliation to SCO, its distribuitor, its new 20% owner
or the OSF (:-).
If I don't get enough flames by then, and something interesting
is said (and it looks like so) I'll post something about it.
Till then, yours trully.
jose.
--
Dept. of Telematic Systems Engineering. Technical U of Madrid.
jas@dit.upm.es jas@goya.uucp mcvax!goya!jas
ETSI Telecomunicacion. tlf. +34 1 449 5762, x325
Ciudad Universitaria fax +34 1 243 2077
28040 Madrid Spain telex 47430 ETSIT E
Do practice methodical doubt...