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From: carter@ferrari.mst6.lanl.gov (Dave Carter)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.msdos
Subject: Re: DOS emulator under UNIX and X windows
Message-ID: <1277@mustang.mst6.lanl.gov>
Date: 23 Oct 90 20:25:03 GMT
References: <1276@mustang.mst6.lanl.gov>
Sender: news@mst6.lanl.gov
Organization: Los Alamos National Lab, Group MST-6
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Chris Siebenmann writes on Re: DOS emulator under UNIX and X windows
> You write:
> | [...] i have
> | looked at SoftPC, written by Insignia (sp?) but was less than
> | impressed.  this product is pretty shabby. 
> 
>  Some people here will be trying to use this soon, so I'm interested
> in hearing about the problems you ran into with SoftPC under Ultrix
> 4.0. Thanks in advance.

from the number of responses i've received, it seems that this is of
interest to many, so i'm going to post a response:

first of all, let me say that the SoftPC which DEC is currently
selling, (which i bought) will not run under Ultrix 4.0.  (DEC strikes
again :-)).  i spent a good deal of time trying to make it work, only
to have Insignia say "oh yah, that won't run under Ultrix 4 - DEC
should have told you that."  (thanks, guys!)  they supposedly have a
"beta test version" which may run under Ultrix 4, - they're going to
send me that soon.

when it did run, under ultrix 3.x, it worked, but was not impressive.
the biggest drawback is that the emulator only supports CGA mode.
come on, guys, with all the great graphics software and programmers
out there for X, you'd think they could do VGA mode, or at the very
least, EGA!  anyway, this was our biggest complaint.  it made programs
such as lotus freelance, manuscript, and other "presentation software"
unbearable.

also, the emulator only emulates an 8088, and not an 80286.  this is
not generally a problem, but if your application requires an AT, or if
it looks at upper memory, you should be aware of this.

the support from Insignia is also very poor.  i called in with a few
relatively straight-forward questions, and got the runaround.  i
eventually got answers, but it was a long, frustrating day of calling
around.

to summarize, if you're looking for software that does extremely
simple DOS applications, though i can't think of any in particular,
this software might work.  if you're looking to run applications such
as lotus products, word processors, spreadsheets (forget about 123R3)
and such, you're going to be very dissapointed.

on that note, does anyone have any experiences with other similar
software?

						- dave

p.s.  if you do plan to try this "product" out, be aware that the
installation script is useless - it is a 3 page script which does
nothing but ask you over and over "do you really want to do this?"
then all it does is copy over some font files, but doesn't even put
them in the correct directory :-)