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From: howard@hpcvra.CV.HP.COM (Howard Honig)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Coherent, anybody?
Message-ID: <26840001@hpcvra.CV.HP.COM>
Date: 5 Jul 90 19:26:31 GMT
References: <10545@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Corvallis, OR, USA
Lines: 61

>/ hpcvra:comp.sys.ibm.pc / tomg@deceds.dec.com ( The Final Frontier) /  5:58 pm  Jun 22, 1990 /
>
>The tech support people at MW indicated that they
>were having problems with machines that have an AMI bios and
>also with certain types of Western Digital controllers. 
>
>
>-Tom Gallo


I don't doubt that this is true, BUT;

Installing Coherent on my 20MHZ 386 Clone with AMI bios
is built by no one most people have heard of.   I had a number of 
problems not releated to the BIOS.  After solving these annoying but
minor problems, Coherent works adequately for my needs.  In fact
I'm pretty impressed for $99.

For the record, and in case this can help someone out the problems
were:

	1. Upon installion the system reads the floppy disks to
uncompact and load the appropriate files into the correct directory.
I had been shipped a bad disk and so the boot procedure would
crash.  This is appropriate I believe.  After calling MW support
they sent me the replacement an impatient 2 weeks later.  The
system loaded successfully after that,

	2. After booting there was no cursor displayed.  This turned
out to be the video interface card problem more the Coherents.
I use the ATI EGA 256K Wonder card which has an enhanced mode 
hardware and software switch selectable option.  The option puts the
characters into 8x14 font instead of the standard 8x8 font.  After
reseting the video adapter's switch to non enhanced mode the cursor appeared. 
Why this helps I can only guess but now everything is working correctly as 
far as I can tell.

I would buy Coherent again since it makes a nice home unix system.  IMHO one
gets a lot for his/her money.  The thing it needs is

	a. A csh or at least a ksh.  I really miss alias and a history
stack,

	b. A large memory model (I am willing to accept no disk paging
for a while at least),

	c. A good vi editor.  The EMACS (it's called "me") supplied is
okay but when your used to using one editor at work going home to use
another is a pain,

	d. A BBS system to share some of those things the basenote
recommends,

	e. and MWC needs a faster way of delivering disks to customers.
Two weeks is a long time when you've waited 1.5 months to get the original
order sent.


Howard Honig
Hewlett-Packard Co.
Corvallis Division