Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!apple!mikel
From: mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: SPARCstation 2 --> workstation wars
Message-ID: <45861@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 21 Oct 90 18:19:52 GMT
References: <1990Oct20.025628.11602@midway.uchicago.edu> <1990Oct20.050207.1910@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 44

In article <1990Oct20.050207.1910@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu> brtmac@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu (Brett McCoy) writes:
>There is the problem of the price of A/UX, especially when you add it to the
>cost of a IIci or IIfx.  You can go out an buy a SPARC loaded to the hilt
>for what a basic A/UX system costs.  Besides, do all of the Mac programs
>un under A/UX, and does the Mac retain all of its GUI functions when running
>A/UX?  (This is really a question, I don't know the answer)

All Mac applications do not run under A/UX. Lots do. A/UX provides
a "compatability" mode to make life easier for those who are running
ill-behaved software. Most of the problem arises from the fact that,
historically, Macs used a 24-bit address space. Since the 68000 family
uses 32-bit addresses, this left eight bits unaccounted for. Many
Mac applications used the unused eight bits for their own purposes.
Naturally, such apps will behave strangely in a 32-bit operating system.
The "compatability" mode (it isn't really called that; I forget the
official terminology) uses 24-bit addressing to improve the behavior
of apps that are not "32-bit clean". 32-bit cleanliness is a major
issue in the Mac world right now, because the forthcoming Mac OS
version 7.0 demands it, so more and more commercial apps are becoming
32-bit clean.

A/UX 2.0 has a completely mac-like interface. As a matter of fact, a
naive user probably would not be able to tell from looking at a Mac
whether it is running Mac OS or A/UX. For knowlegeable users, there are
some clues, however. For example, the A/UX Finder has a menu item
that opens a command shell window from which you can execute commands
with your favorite shell. (A/UX includes Korn, Bourne, and C). One
thing that I particularly like about A/UX as compared to other
Unix systems is Commando. Commando is a tool that was swiped from 
Apple's MPW development system. It presents a command-line command
as a dialog box. The dialog shows all the commands flag options
as buttons, menus, checkboxes, sliders, radio buttons, and so on so
that you can build a useful command line without knowing the flag
options in advance. The command line appears in a text box at the
bottom of the dialog, and you can transfer it to your shell window
on execution, so that it appears in your history, should you want
to use it again sometime. I think this is really handy for those
commands that you don't use all the time. Oh, and, no you don't
have to use Commando; you can just type the commands that you do
know well.

The issue of price is still a problem, of course. Also, a Mac IIfx
is not going to perform like a SPARCStation or a NeXTStation. Always
tradeoffs.