GTHEALL@PENNDRLS.BITNET (George A. Theall) (02/26/89)
In an earlier message Tom J Colley writes: >..., but I'd be real surprised if anyone has released software >for it in 4 or 5 years. It is not IBM compatible in the least. ... Whoa!! 4 or 5 years is taking things back aways. I'm no power user on the Rainbow, but last year I did buy a Rainbow-specific version of WordPerfect (v4.2) which at the time was the _current_ version. Suitable Solutions in Calif. came out with MS-DOS v3.1 for the Rainbow last August; in the fall the same company also began marketing a 286-board for the Rainbow (for around $600). Sometime in the summer or fall of 1988 another company came out with a terminal emulation package supporting Tek 4010 (I think) graphics devices. If I had a copy of Rainbow News I'd browse thru it for more examples of recent Rainbow-specific products. True, the number of new software releases for the Rainbow is tiny, but it has certainly not been dead for 4 or 5 years. There was even talk of porting MINIX to the Rainbow recently. As for compatibility, both the Rainbow and IBM PC run MS-DOS, which in itself is a limited form of compatibility. Some compilers, for example, only require this type of compatibility to function perfectly on the Rainbow even tho' it may not be Rainbow-specific. For other programs, it may be possible to run them with Code Blue, a $99 program which to a limited extent provides compatibility at the PC's BIOS level. For example, WordPerfect v5.0 will not be released for the Rainbow; but the IBM PC version works ok on the Rainbow under Code Blue. George +------------------------------------------+---------------------------+ | GTHEALL@PENNDRLS (BITNET) | Dept. of Economics | | GTHEALL@PENNDRLS.UPENN.EDU (INTERNET) | Univ. of Pennsylvania | | | 3718 Locust Walk /6297 | | (215) 898-6741 (AT+TNet) | Philadelphia, PA. 19104 | +------------------------------------------+---------------------------+ Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. - Confucius
norman@husc4.HARVARD.EDU (John Norman) (02/27/89)
In article <Added.8Y20Bny00Ui3I2dE86@andrew.cmu.edu> GTHEALL@PENNDRLS.BITNET (George A. Theall) writes: > >Suitable Solutions in Calif. came out with MS-DOS v3.1 for the >Rainbow last August; in the fall the same company also began marketing >a 286-board for the Rainbow (for around $600). But the 286 board is only for the Rainbow 100-A, right? John Norman Department of English and American Literature and Language Warren House Box E-13 Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138 617/495-2533 (Official business ONLY) UUCP: harvard!husc4!norman Domain: norman@husc4.harvard.edu BITNET: NORMAN@HULAW1
ERIK@MAX.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU ("Erik A. Abers") (02/28/89)
Lotus has a Rainbow version of their 1-2-3 spread-sheet program. It is up to version 2.01, which I think is equivalent to the latest version for "big blue". Most, if not all, of Microsoft's programming language compilers work from the MS-DOS command line on the Rainbow. (C, Fortran, Pascal, etc) Most of the Norton Utilities software will run on the Rainbow under MS-DOS, although again some are limited to being run from the command line (full screen mode is often sloppy, even with the /D2 ansi switch). There is an excellent full-screen editor called SEDT that is being used internally within DEC. The author Anker Berg-Sonne is constantly updating and improving the program and a new release comes out every few months. Best of all, is that this gem is FREE. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -- Erik A. Abers -- 501 North 36th Street; #167 -- University of Washington -- Seattle, WA 98103-8613; USA -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -> Address #1: Erik@Max.ACS.Washington.Edu -> From BITNET, the domain of -> Address #2: Erik@Blake.ACS.Washington.Edu ".ACS.Washington.Edu" can -> Address #3: Erik@UWaCDC.ACS.Washington.Edu be disregarded. -> Address #4: EA@Grace.CS.Washington.Edu -> Telephone: (206) 632-2775 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-