brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (12/05/83)
For those interested, QNX will be the operating system for the CemCorp ICON computer. The kernal will be placed in ROM!!!!! For those not familiar, the ICON is a microcomputer designed for the educational market by a company specially set up to do so. They will be in schools all over Ontario next year. It has an 80186 processor, minimum 256k ram, non-detachable keyboard (for schools - but there is a connector for developers) trackball for pointing, bitmap display. Integral monitor, too. The interface is based on pointing with the trackball and pop-up menus. Each one also has a 2.5 megabit ARCNET interface so you can tie them to a fileserver. The catch here is that schools get a tremendous subsidy if they buy one. While the Ministry of Education pays CemCorp $2,500 Canadian for them, they sell it to the school boards for around $900! So few schools will be without one. -- Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ontario (519) 886-7304
perelgut@utcsrgv.UUCP (Stephen Perelgut) (12/10/83)
From my (brief) experience with QNX and an ICON (I saw it demonstrated
and tried a command or three), QNX is the *WORST* OS I have ever seen.
It has a lot of nerve even implying it is a Unix derivative. PC-DOS 2.0
is as close (or closer) to Unix.
Anyone out there have any ideas how to implement Unix on an 80186 (806[68])?
There are some inherent problems with the lack of support for security
features. I imagine there is a great problem just stopping people from
trashing the OS on a regular basis. Anyone know how COHERENT solves that?
The ICON is a nifty machine. Cheap, good network, and sensible design.
I would love to get hold of one or more to play with. But boy is it
saddled with a turkey of an OS.
--
Stephen Perelgut Computer Systems Research Group University of Toronto
Usenet: {linus, ihnp4, allegra, decvax, floyd}!utcsrgv!perelgut