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From: jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: Coherent, anybody?
Message-ID: <3118@crash.cts.com>
Date: 12 Jun 90 06:56:05 GMT
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Organization: People-Net [pnet01], El Cajon CA
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larry@pylos.cchem.berkeley.edu (Raymond L. June) writes:
>In article <3058@crash.cts.com>, jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau)
>writes:
>|> cattanac@clitus.cs.uiuc.edu (Scott Cattanach) writes:
>|> >rose@galtee.cs.wisc.edu (Scott Rose) writes:
>|> >
>|> >>Anybody out there interested in a Coherent mailing list?  I'm having a few
>|> >>problems with things like the installable device drivers that might profit
>|> >>from some discussion.  I'm assuming that technical support at Mark
>Williams
>|> >>will be kind of iffy, particularly at first.  Such a list might also be a
>|> >>handy clearinghouse mechanism for ported software; I'm having a stab at
>|> >>"less" and RCS myself at the moment.  Interested parties send me
>return mail
>|> >>while I scramble around looking for a suitable place to set up an
>alias, if
>|> >>the interest level should warrant.  Should somebody be in a
>position to offer
>|> >>to administer the thing, all the better...
>|> >
>|> >What I wanna know is will it work on a 386SX?
>|> 
>|> Yes it will, but don't expect it to utilitize any of the features of
>the 386. 
>|> Coherent is a 286 based OS.
>|> 
>|> Anything that will run on a 86, 186, 286, or 386 will run on a 386SX with
>|> respect to instruction set compatability.  Whether a piece of software is
>|> compatable in question depends on your BIOS and the chip set on your
>|> motherboard.  If your 386SX motherboard has one of the more compatable chip
>|> sets on it or is made by one of the major motherboard manufacturers,
>then you
>|> should be in good shape.
>|>
>
>This is quite true. I have a PC Brand 386/20 that uses the C&T chips set and
>AMI386 BIOS. Coherent refuses to even boot on the beast. MWC says that
>they have problems with older AMI BIOS's - mine is dated 4/30/89 and PC Brand
>says that it's the newest BIOS they distribute. MWC has a 60 day return
>policy that I'm going to exercise. I need the PC too much to return it...

Not compatable with an AMI BIOS?  Geez, that is serious.  AMI is one of the
more compatable BIOS chip sets out there.  Again, I wonder about MWC.

Minix is almost at the 32-bit stage.  You might want to investigate that.
 
     // JCA

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