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From: keithe@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Context-Switching OSes
Message-ID: <6126@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM>
Date: 11 Oct 89 22:50:06 GMT
References: <1989Oct10.052428.21628@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: keithe@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson)
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.
Lines: 49

In article <1989Oct10.052428.21628@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> wang@cs.uiuc.edu (Eric Wang) writes:
<I have a need for some serious computing power, and would like to ask for
<wisdom from the Net:
<
<a) I am looking for a more powerful operating system that meets the following
<   "requirements":
<
<    1) It must be fully DOS-compatible.  I intend to use it to run
<        programs written for DOS.
<
<    2) It must support context-switching.  Concurrent processing is not
<        a requirement, but would be a nice bonus.  (I'm sure I could find
<        some way to use it, but it's not essential to what I have in
<        mind.)
<
<    3) It must allow TSRs to be loaded and used normally within each DOS
<        environment.  (This precludes Concurrent DOS, to the best of my
<        experience.)  That is to say, each DOS must be able to support 
<        its own local set of TSRs.  Of course, TSRs need not cross over
<        into other DOS environments, and in fact, they had better not.
<
<    4) It must be intelligent about graphic modes.  I intend to use it to
<        switch between a VGA graphics program and a normal text editor,
<        and it's no use to me if it gets confused as to what mode the
<        monitor should be in.
<
<    5) Finally, it should be relatively inexpensive.  SCO Unix V/3.2 is
<        listed at $3500; that's expensive.  DesqView/386 is less than $200;
<        that's not expensive.  I'll go as high as $500 for a really good
<        product, but I'm hoping to keep my expenses down.
<

VM/386 satisfies all these requirements with the _possible_ exception of
number 4;  and I say that just 'cuz I haven't really wrung it out thru it's
VGA modes.  But I'll be very surprised if there are any problems.

Number 3 is the real reason I'm interested in VM/386 over Desqview and
Windows - each virtual machine is started with its OWN copies ov a
config.sys and autoexec.bat files.  That means I can have one machine set up
to do networking (and all the memory PC-NFS gobbles up), another with the
MKS shell and environment, another for communications, and on and on (I've
got 8 megabytes of RAM so I can support quite a number of virtual machines).

VM/386 is available from IGC , Santa Clara, CA.  Call (408)-986-8373, ask
for Sherryl (sp?) and tell her I sent you.  (It probably won't do any good
but knows?)  I don't recall the price, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper than
UNIX (and it really IS a DOS environment.)  It's in the $250 range.

kEITHe