breck@umvlsi.ecs.umass.edu (William Breck) (07/08/90)
Hello folks...
Here is a summary of the responses I received.
Mortice Kern Systems' product, MKS toolkit, was highly recommended.
It contains a K-shell, which I'm told is an improved Bourne shell.
Command line editing reportedly works with vi or emacs key bindings.
The shell may act as a replacement for DOS's normal command.com.
I was told that they also have products for BS/2. Oh, did I type a
`B' instead of an `O'? ;-)
One reply mentioned that the utilities were ported from System V3 and
included a list of them:
r.exe dc.exe id.exe pcat.exe sync.exe
asa.exe dd.exe ident.exe pg.exe tail.exe
awk.87 deroff.exe jobs.exe posixcon.exe tar.exe
awk.exe dev.exe join.exe pr.exe tee.exe
awkl.87 df.exe kill.exe prof.exe test.exe
awkl.exe diff.exe lc.exe ps.exe time.exe
banner.exe diff3.exe lex.exe pwd.exe touch.exe
basename.exe dirname.exe line.exe rcs.exe tr.exe
c.exe du.exe login.exe rcsclean.exe tty.exe
cal.exe echo.exe logname.exe rcsdiff.exe uname.exe
calendar.exe ed.exe look.exe rcsmerge.exe uncompre.exe
cat.exe egrep.exe ls.exe rev.exe unexpand.exe
cc.exe env.exe m4.exe rlog.exe uniq.exe
cd.exe expand.exe mailx.exe rm.exe unpack.exe
chmod.exe expr.exe make.exe rmdir.exe unstrip.exe
ci.exe fg.exe merge.exe sed.exe uudecode.exe
cmp.exe fgrep.exe mkdir.exe sh.exe uuencode.exe
co.exe file.exe mktemp.exe size.exe validfna.exe
comm.exe find.exe more.exe sleep.exe vi.exe
compress.exe fmt.exe mv.exe sort.exe wc.exe
cp.exe fold.exe nl.exe spell.exe which.exe
cpio.exe getopt.exe nm.exe split.exe who.exe
crypt.exe grep.exe od.exe strings.exe xargs.exe
ctags.exe gres.exe pack.exe strip.exe yacc.exe
cut.exe head.exe passwd.exe sum.exe
date.exe help.exe paste.exe
It is available from a mail-order firm, the Programmer's Shop, for
about $229. Students are elegible for a discount. Another source
said Univar, for $120...
Mortice Kern Systems, Inc. Tel (519) 884-2251
35 King Street North FAX (519) 884-8861
Waterloo, Ontario, N2J 2W9 UUCP: uunet!watmath!mks!inquiry
Canada Internet: inquiry@mks.com
Compuserve User ID: 73260,1043
BIX User Name: mks
Another product, C/utilities Toolchest, from Mix software includes a
Bourne shell, utilities, C compiler and debugger and source. The
price is rumored to be $20.
Mix Software
1132 commerce Drive
Richardson, TX 75081.
1-800-333-0330
Another reply touted PolyShell from Sage Software. They are
reportedly about to drop the product, but have given the rights to
the author, Pat Thompson, who will be selling it. It will soon be
available for BS/2, as well. It is rumored to be better than MKS
Utilities.
There is a book available titled "OnCommand: Writing a Unix-Like Shell
for MS-DOS" by Allen Holub. It includes a disk with a shell written
by the author.
The publisher is:
M&T Publishing, Inc.
501 Galveston Drive
Redwood City, CA 94063
Another netter recommended a pc bulletin board in the DC area that has
loads of Unix and Unix-ported-to-DOS utilities. The board is
'Computer Connect', run by Bob Blacher @ (202) 547-2008.
Finally, public domain versions of some utilities might be found in
the simtel20 archives (simtel20.army.mil), available by anonymous ftp.
An index is available. For an intro to the simtel20 see
comp.sys.ibmpc.digest.
Thanx to all of you who posted or emailed replies! If anyone is
interested in archiving the replies or the summary, let me know and
I'll email you a copy!
Liambreck@umvlsi.ecs.umass.edu (William Breck) (07/12/90)
When I posted my summary of responses, I mentioned that Polyshell was "rumored" to be better than MKS Toolkit. The truth of the matter is, _one_ of the netters who replied liked Polyshell better. No one else compared the two until after my summary was posted. Since the summary posting, a netter sent me the following info: "MKS has more utilities and has gone to a lot of trouble to ensure that its utilities conform to the System V definitions or the draft POSIX.2 Shell and Utilities interface as appropriate. (Note that the SVID covers a lot that isn't mentioned at all in POSIX.2 or POSIX.2a) PolyShell hasn't really made much effort to follow the POSIX.2 effort. "Folks who prefer Berkeley-flavoured things like the C Shell and who aren't very POSIX-oriented might well prefer PolyShell, while folks who are POSIX or System V oriented will be much happier with the MKS Toolkit. "The other consideration in comparing them is the matter of support and MKS has a quite solid reputation for supporting its customers while Polytron is dropping its support. "[Another user] has been quite happy with the shell described in `On Command' and with its accompanying utilities from `/util' that M&T Publishing sells. It doesn't do as much as either PolyShell or the MKS Toolkit, but if it meets your needs then it is a reasonable way to save money." This same user reports that he has heard of a product called the "Hamilton C Shell" from another vendor. He didn't have any more info about it though. If I can be of help, or need more enlightenment about this topic, feel free to email me! Liam