Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cscs!csmith
From: csmith@cscs.UUCP (Craig E. Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.msdos
Subject: Re: The purpose of this group...
Message-ID: <1990Sep11.203742.19672@cscs.UUCP>
Date: 11 Sep 90 20:37:42 GMT
References: <13111@netcom.UUCP> <26E3F766.2F57@tct.uucp>
Organization: CS Computer Systems, Hudson, MA, USA
Lines: 36

In <26E3F766.2F57@tct.uucp> chip@tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) writes:

>...is to discuss "MS-DOS running under Unix by whatever means."

>So to get the ball rolling:  Those who have used both Merge/386 and
>VP/ix, which do you prefer?

I have seen VP/ix demonstrated, but have not used it. I have Merge/386,
use it once in a while, and have come to two conclusions based on my
experience with it:

1) Their is very little I can do with DOS that I can't do in
plain UNIX (with the exception of playing some of my favorite
video games and writing user programs that directly address hardware).

and

2) For the amount of money I spent on Merge/386 (including an
expensive upgrade to get it to work on my VGA monitor), it would
have been more cost effective to simply buy a used IBM/PC as a second
machine, and not mess with my UNIX kernel (why do I start getting negative 
numbers in the SZ field of a 'ps -le' after running MERGE?). 


In short I find MERGE an interesting toy to play with, and as
a software developer it seems an interesting concept, but I don't
find it to be really worthwhile for my own use, especially considering
the cost as compared to an actual PC, which is less likely to have
any compatibility problems.


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