george@genat.UUCP (George Gorsline) (11/13/87)
Does anyone have any information on Toshiba (or other) laptops running Xenix
or UNIX. We handle both SCO and Toshiba, both of whom claim there is no
product running today, but many rumours persist. Can anybody enlighten us?
--
George Gorsline, Jr. VE3FIU / K8HI
One of the VE3YDX gang... Y DX? Because it's there(~Y)!
__... ...__ . ... _.. _.._
Genamation, 351 Steelcase Rd. West, Markham Ontario L3R 3W1
!uunet{!mnetor,!utzoo}!genat!george
(416) 475-9434wcs@ho95e.ATT.COM (Bill.Stewart) (11/15/87)
In article <238@genat.UUCP> george@genat.UUCP (George Gorsline) writes:
:Does anyone have any information on Toshiba (or other) laptops running Xenix
:or UNIX. We handle both SCO and Toshiba, both of whom claim there is no
:product running today, but many rumours persist. Can anybody enlighten us?
The basic problems are lack of disk space, and vendor support. A
typical laptop has two 720K floppies, which is marginally enough to
have UNIX itself plus a removable disk for your applications.
You can run UNIX in that much space, but UNIX is really a lot happier
with a hard disk so you can hold the applications you're used to.
In the MS-DOS world, people are used to switching floppy disks a lot,
but remember that MS-DOS usually doesn't mind, whereas UNIX wants to be warned.
(I assume you want the machine for "user"-type work rather than software
development; to do serious development, you'll need a hard disk
anyway, so there's room to run Xenix.)
The Minix operating system, written by Andy Tanenbaum and friends, does
fit on a two-360K-floppy PC. Booting it is annoying, because you have
to switch disks a few times to get everything loaded, but it's
compatible with V7 UNIX and has enough utilities to be a real
environment. It's been ported to the Toshiba, and the 720K floppies
give a lot more room to do real work, and eliminate the boot problem.
It was written as a learning environment, and comp.os.minix readers are
always updating it, so it takes a bit of work to keep up to date,
but it can be used to do real work.
If you want to run a larger environment, such as Xenix V or Venix,
you'll have some trouble fitting it all, but it can be done.
You'll probably want to have a hard-disk machine around to repackage
everything onto floppies with.
However, I'd recommend an alternative approach for most users.
Use MS-DOS, and get the MKS Toolkit, so you'll have most of the
utilities you're used to, including a real shell, ls, vi, etc.
It isn't real UNIX, since there's still a single-process silly OS
underneath, but it feels a lot more like it than raw DOS.
--
# Thanks;
# Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs 2G218, Holmdel NJ 1-201-949-0705 ihnp4!ho95c!wcsericg@sco.COM (Mwa ha ha) (11/19/87)
george@genat.UUCP (George Gorsline) wrote in article <238@genat.UUCP>: ]Does anyone have any information on Toshiba (or other) laptops running Xenix ]or UNIX. We handle both SCO and Toshiba, both of whom claim there is no ]product running today, but many rumours persist. Can anybody enlighten us? ] I have yet to see a laptop with a hard disk, yet alone a reasonably large hard disk. This quite handily prevents UNIX from running on it. -- Eric Griswold (ericg@sco.COM) "That's no baby. That's a Mr. Potatohead" I do not speak for SCO, I barely have enough room for my own opinions.
mdf@tut.UUCP (11/20/87)
In <395@sco> ericg@sco.COM (Mwa ha ha) writes: >george@genat.UUCP (George Gorsline) wrote in article <238@genat.UUCP>: >]Does anyone have any information on Toshiba (or other) laptops running Xenix >]or UNIX. We handle both SCO and Toshiba, both of whom claim there is no >]product running today, but many rumours persist. Can anybody enlighten us? >] > >I have yet to see a laptop with a hard disk, yet alone a reasonably large >hard disk. This quite handily prevents UNIX from running on it. I see three classes: Luggable: Compaq-like 30 lb. monster Portable: Zenith IRS machine, Quadram Dataview, etc. Laptop: Grid, Toshiba, NEC. Luggables can run XENIX. Portables routinely sport 20M (usually slow) hard disks. I have seen laptops with hard disks in the 20M range (speed unknown). Check the latest offerings from Sharp, NEC and Toshiba. -- Mark D. Freeman (614) 262-3703 StrongPoint Systems, Inc. mdf@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu 2440 Medary Avenue ...!cbosgd!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mdf Columbus, OH 43202-3014 Guest account at The Ohio State University
greg@ncrcan.UUCP (11/20/87)
In article <1863@ho95e.ATT.COM> wcs@ho95e.UUCP (46133-Bill.Stewart,2G218,x0705,) writes: >In article <238@genat.UUCP> george@genat.UUCP (George Gorsline) writes: >:Does anyone have any information on Toshiba (or other) laptops running Xenix >:or UNIX. We handle both SCO and Toshiba, both of whom claim there is no >:product running today, but many rumours persist. Can anybody enlighten us? > >The basic problems are lack of disk space, and vendor support. A >typical laptop has two 720K floppies, which is marginally enough to >have UNIX itself plus a removable disk for your applications. >You can run UNIX in that much space, but UNIX is really a lot happier >with a hard disk so you can hold the applications you're used to. If you could fit a 20 Megabyte 3 1/2 inch hard disk into the lap top there would be no reason why you couldn't run Xenix. You wouldn't have a lot of space left over, but you should have enough space left to run the applications that you want to run. I've seen 80286 based intelligent workstations running SCO Xenix-286 without any problem. These machines had a 3 1/2 inch half hieght 20 Megabyte hard disk in them. Slow, but it works. -- "Shit Happens!" +-------------------------------------------------------+-------------------+ | UUCP: ..!mnetor!utzoo!lsuc!ncrcan!greg | Greg Foisy | | INTERNET: Greg.Foisy@Toronto.NCR.COM | NCR Canada Ltd. | | CANPOST: 6865 Century Ave, Mississauga, Ont. L5N 2E2 | (416) 826-9000 | +-------------------------------------------------------+-------------------+
dave@sq.UUCP (11/23/87)
In article <409@ncrcan.Toronto.NCR.COM> greg@ncrcan.Toronto.NCR.COM (Greg Foisy) writes: >In article <1863@ho95e.ATT.COM> wcs@ho95e.UUCP (46133-Bill.Stewart,2G218,x0705,) writes: >>In article <238@genat.UUCP> george@genat.UUCP (George Gorsline) writes: >>:Does anyone have any information on Toshiba (or other) laptops running Xenix >>:or UNIX. We handle both SCO and Toshiba, both of whom claim there is no >>:product running today, but many rumours persist. Can anybody enlighten us? >> >>The basic problems are lack of disk space, and vendor support. A >>typical laptop has two 720K floppies, which is marginally enough to >>have UNIX itself plus a removable disk for your applications. >>You can run UNIX in that much space, but UNIX is really a lot happier >>with a hard disk so you can hold the applications you're used to. > > If you could fit a 20 Megabyte 3 1/2 inch hard disk into the > lap top there would be no reason why you couldn't run Xenix. Ok the computer exists but the question still remains. The computer: Toshiba T5100 laptop * 80386 @ 16MHz. * internal 40Mb hard disk (29ms) * internal 1.44 Mb 3 1/4" diskette. * 80X25 gas plasma display (EGA compatable) * 2 Meg main expandable to 4. * 15 lbs. * MS-Sludge 3.2 The question: Will UNIX run on it? The salesmen at the show didn't know. (Canadian Computer Show, Toronto) (Toshiba also has less overkill versions) ----- {utai,utzoo}!sq!dave SoftQuad Inc. (home of sqtroff) 720 Spadina Ave Toronto, Ontario, Canada (416) 963-8337
george@genat.UUCP (11/26/87)
Thanks to all the people who responded to my query regarding laptop
Xenix/UNIX. Except for the few who were unaware of the current state of the
art in the laptop world (that is, there ARE hard disks and reasonable memory
sizes on the little beasties), all comments were helpful.
Net result is that nobody knows for sure, including Toshiba and SCO. So we
are in the process of finding out using a Toshiba 5100 (40mb disk at 29ms with
a 386 chip and 1mb basic memory). There are two areas we suspect will be the
problems:
EGA and monitor simulation (yup, really two separate areas, but ...)
Disk driver issues
There will be a further posting to the net once we have been able to get some
hard data. If these efforts with the 386 product are fruitful, we may then
look at the T3200 (286 at 12 mHz with a full AT slot for an Intellicom 8-port
board) as our next target. This is done not for knowledge's sake, but to
provide a practical way of giving our VARs a selling tool to demonstrate their
solutions live at their prospects' offices. If you have a similar need, send
a mail message...
Regards,
--
George Gorsline, Jr. VE3FIU / K8HI
One of the VE3YDX gang... Y DX? Because it's there(~Y)!
__... ...__ . ... _.. _.._
Genamation, 351 Steelcase Rd. West, Markham Ontario L3R 3W1
!uunet{!mnetor,!utzoo}!genat!george
(416) 475-9434