Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!ucsd!nosc!crash!pnet01!jca
From: jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Coherent
Message-ID: <2590@crash.cts.com>
Date: 9 May 90 03:56:02 GMT
Sender: root@crash.cts.com
Organization: People-Net [pnet01], El Cajon CA
Lines: 54

ingea@IFI.UIO.NO (Inge Arnesen) writes:
>>>Somebody else used Coherent to slam Minix, all I can say to this person
>>>is if you don't like it (Minix) then it will be nice NOT to have you
>>>cluttering up the bandwidth..! :)
>
>>Can we have some information on this? be nice to find out to what
>>degree code can be ported between them. E.g. if Coherent has a proper
>>version of awk we could throw away bawk.
>
>Well, Coherent is a UNIX compatible OS (well, that's what they all say :-)
>selling for $100 and is (from what I could deduct from the add) running
>in 286 protected mode. It's a rewrite and probably faster than the good
>old UNIX, but it's probably a lot buggier. It's got a development kit
>included, but as far as I know, it's *no source code*.
>
>Alas, I fail to see that it can be of much value to the MINIX community.
>If you really wan't a nice AWK, the GNU AWK is a good choice. I can never
>be an official part of MINIX (GNU licence), but like lot's of other
>GNU stuff, it will be around. As for PC MINIX, it will probably never
>have true clones of the extended AWK programs and YACC parsers until
>it gets out of the 64+64K limit.
>
>As it has been pointed out by many people, there is a split in the MINIX
>community between the people that want to use it as an educational tool
>and those who want a cheap UNIX OS with source. Maybe some of those will
>sacrifice the demand for source code and buy Coherent. Who knows ?
 
That's the point, MWC proved that they could do it in 286 protected mode. 
They benched it up to SCO Xenix 286 and according to Byte's Unix benchmark, it
beat it.  Now the ad states that their kernel is 64K while SCO's is 198K. 
What MWC has done, I don't know off hand.  I'll find out when I order it, but
I do know that the 8086 version from using it is very impressive.  Supports
large model programs, the whole 9 yards.  Sure, you can go and butcher up code
to hammer it into the 64K code/64K data & stack limit, but a lot of Unix code
these days isn't meant for that.  It's time to retire the 80x86 (x < 3) and
get cracking on a 386 version of Minix.  Or if you still want to keep the
80x86 (x < 3) around, then develop an 8086 and 80286 specific version of
Minix.  Until it becomes more usable, it will only be an academic exercise.

I sacrifice the demand for source code at work when dealing with Xenix and
SunOS.  What you prey for is that the technical support staff is up to par and
will help you out if something doesn't work.  Sun is ok, but slower than
molasses, and SCO...well, I'd best leave that one alone.
 
     // JCA

 /*
 **--------------------------------------------------------------------------*
 ** Flames  : /dev/null                     | Xenix is the ONLY thing
 ** ARPANET : crash!pnet01!jca@nosc.mil     | Microsoft did right.
 ** INTERNET: jca@pnet01.cts.com
 ** UUCP    : {nosc ucsd hplabs!hd-sdd}!crash!pnet01!jca
 **--------------------------------------------------------------------------*
 */