lenny@icus.UUCP (Lenny Tropiano) (03/18/88)
The company I work for (American LP Systems, Inc., an AT&T VAR) is in a slight
bind these days. We are caught between the a couple of decisions as far
as where we are headed in the selling market.
With the recent discontinuation of the AT&T 3B1/UNIX pc (our major selling
line prior to this), we are forced to move with the current trend of 386
UNIX machines. AT&T has released the 6386 WGS, their 80386 box. Unfortunately
not all the pieces are ready and available to the general public. Two
major components being serial port boards (w/UNIX drivers) and internal
or external tape backup units. We cannot sell these machines (at their
prices) to people as single-user (one terminal), floppy backup UNIX systems.
It's just a waste of resources...
We have a couple of options we can take, and we are tossing around in the
office. We would prefer to stay with UNIX System V release 3.0 or better
just because it's the up-and-coming standard for UNIX AT&T is proposing.
We want to have the ability to support our customers with a 386 machine
in the office running AT&T UNIX (preferably 6386 and AT&T UNIX System V r.3)
using some sort of binary compatibility on other UNIX boxes. (ie.
we can compile on our machine and send to another 386 machine [possible
different vendors for hardware and OS] without recompiling there) Is
this currently possible or is it just in the future?
o Is Microport UNIX System V/386 the answer? Do they have drivers that will
support 3rd party serial port boards (4-6 ports using the RJ-45 modular
scheme?)
o Is Interactive's 386/ix the answer? Do they have drivers...?
o Is SCO Xenix the answer? Will be have compatibility between UNIX-and-
Xenix? :-) Do they have drivers...?
o What hardware is suggested? 386 box, tape units, port boards, vendors?
o Can we support 80286 machines (IBM AT's) running Microport UNIX System V
with the 386 machine, if we can compile with the 286 instruction set?
Is this possible? Or do we need a IBM AT/286 machine?
Any help would be extremely appreciated. Email is preferred... I will
summarize and post results to any interested party.
Thanks,
Lenny Tropiano
(Confused in a sea of 386 options...)
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UUCP : ...{mtune, ihnp4, boulder, talcott, sbcs, bc-cis}!icus!lenny davidsen@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP (William E. Davidsen Jr) (03/22/88)
In article <300@icus.UUCP> lenny@icus.UUCP (Lenny Tropiano) writes: } [...] }o Is Microport UNIX System V/386 the answer? Do they have drivers that will } support 3rd party serial port boards (4-6 ports using the RJ-45 modular } scheme?) I think Bell Technology sells what you want, 6 port smart serial with drivers. They also have tape drives, although they're expensive. }o Is Interactive's 386/ix the answer? Do they have drivers...? I don't know about the drivers, but check the C compiler before you buy. My experience was totally negative. The console driver was not totally reliable, but I don't remember details. }o Is SCO Xenix the answer? Will be have compatibility between UNIX-and- } Xenix? :-) Do they have drivers...? SCO has drivers for ARNET boards, I believe both smart and dumb but my manuals not here, and Bell Tech has its serial boards. AT&T is in bed with everybody these days, including SCO and Microsoft. Microsoft says that a future release will support both Microsoft binary standard and COFF format. }o What hardware is suggested? 386 box, tape units, port boards, vendors? For your application you probably want to go IBM or COMPQ. There have been a lot of reports of trouble with the model 80 and 387 chip at 20MHz, though. Bell Tech has been good to me, but is not cheap. I'm ordering an "Archive" tape drive from Tek-Aids, two people in the local UNIX users group have them and like them, but I won't know myself for a few weeks. }o Can we support 80286 machines (IBM AT's) running Microport UNIX System V } with the 386 machine, if we can compile with the 286 instruction set? } Is this possible? Or do we need a IBM AT/286 machine? Xenix/386 cross compiles for Xenix/286 and MS-DOS. }UUCP : ...{mtune, ihnp4, boulder, talcott, sbcs, bc-cis}!icus!lenny -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes) (03/27/88)
In article <10022@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>, davidsen@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP (William E. Davidsen Jr) writes: In article <300@icus.UUCP> lenny@icus.UUCP (Lenny Tropiano) writes: } [...] }o Is Microport UNIX System V/386 the answer? Do they have drivers that will } support 3rd party serial port boards (4-6 ports using the RJ-45 modular } scheme?) I've been using MicroPort V/AT (the 286 version) for about 1.5 years now. I have had a fairly good experience with MicroPort, and I firmly believe they are working on their bug list as quickly as they can. Most of the actual bugs I have run into in V/AT (as opposed to my own stupid mistakes :-) seem to be bugs that are on the Ringy-Ding Tel & Tel's System V Release 2 bug list, which I happened to get a look at this weekend. The big exception is uPort's malloc(3X) library, which is *completely* brain-dead. Ah well. }o Is Interactive's 386/ix the answer? Do they have drivers...? I haven't had a chance to use 386/ix yet, but it seems like a *completely* cut-rate system. I'll try to get comments out of a friend who uses it a work (porting comm. software to various Unix systems - hard work). I do know he's muttered about some cretinisms in the console and serial port device drivers. }o Is SCO Xenix the answer? Will be have compatibility between UNIX-and- } Xenix? :-) Do they have drivers...? Great stuff, but expensive. As someone once told me, the MicroPort system you CAN afford is much better than the Xenix system you CAN'T afford. :-( }o What hardware is suggested? 386 box, tape units, port boards, vendors? I have had a very good experience with my Sperry PC/IT. Unisys is still selling the Micro/IT (same board, smaller box), and is on the verge of releasing their 386 PC. They have excellent service, and like IBM and DEC, aren't likely to go out of business soon. I wondered what the merger would do to their service centers. After the confusion sorted out, it got *better*. I'd say it went from an 8 to a 9 - the only better I've seen is Xerox Americare service. DISCLAIMER: My brother works for Unisys, but not in their PC division - he works in the division responsible for system software on their OEM'd Unix boxes (heh heh). If you really want the ultimate in "Intel Unix", buy one of the Sequent computers OEM'd by Unisys! }o Can we support 80286 machines (IBM AT's) running Microport UNIX System V } with the 386 machine, if we can compile with the 286 instruction set? } Is this possible? Or do we need a IBM AT/286 machine? With MicroPort, you can run the 286 compiler on the 386 system. I saw a message yesterday outlining how to do it; it seemed pretty reasonable. I would think the link times would be much faster on the 386 system, that's one reason for NOT running your 286 developement on a 286! :-) Wes Peters -- /\ - "Against Stupidity, - {backbones}! /\/\ . /\ - The Gods Themselves - utah-cs!utah-gr! / \/ \/\/ \ - Contend in Vain." - uplherc!sp7040! / U i n T e c h \ - Schiller - obie!wes