Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!lll-winken!sun-barr!newstop!texsun!vector!egsner!eric From: eric@egsner.cirr.com (Eric Schnoebelen) Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386 Subject: Re: SCO UNIX VMS and ULTRIX on new DEC product line Message-ID: <1990Dec26.165119.20419@egsner.cirr.com> Date: 26 Dec 90 16:51:19 GMT References: <2777E87B.6392@tct.uucp> <29027@usc> <29029@usc> Organization: Central Iowa (Model) Railroad, Dallas, Tx. Lines: 41 In article <29029@usc> annala@neuro.usc.edu (A J Annala) writes: - In article <2777E87B.6392@tct.uucp> chip@tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) writes: - >According to annala@neuro.usc.edu (A J Annala): - >>According to DEC's advertisement in Computer Reseller News, the new - >>DEC 433MP System (1 to 6 coupled i486 CPU's, 64 MB global shared memory - >>64 MB/s system bus, 1.2 GB internal hard disk) will not run any variety - >>of VMS (or even ULTRIX) -- INSTEAD IT WILL RUN SCO UNIX!!! - >Well, of course it won't run VMS. VMS is coded in VAX assembler. - - My friends tell me most of VMS is coded in a DEC proprietary language - called BLISS. BLISS exists for PDP-11's, PDP-10's, and VAXen -- DEC - could have chosen to write a new BLISS compiler for the 80386 -- but - that is not what happened -- instead, DEC adopted SCO UNIX for their - new machine. Moreover, in the process, DEC abandoned it's own ULTRIX - (DEC proprietary version of UNIX) in order to adopt SCO UNIX. One comment. The reason that DEC most likely went with SCO is that they have had a multi-processor OS (Unix?) for the '386 class chips for at least a year. And DEC certainly could not afford to port Ultrix for the cost that they were able to purchase SCO's multi-processor product. It costs lots of money and time to port an OS, and I can't see DEC perceiving that much return from it's '386/'486 based products. I would suspect they built it to keep customers who wanted low end Unix machines from DEC happy. Remember that DEC also purchases MS-DOS PC's from Tandy to keep those same customers happy. Dollars, not features, and availability, not ability caused DEC to purchase the SCO product over it's own Ultrix product. I will make no comments on the value of the SCO product, since I have not used it. I did watch one gentleman install time and time again in the process of trying to bring up a PICK product recently, but I have no idea how much of that was related to SCO, the PICK product, or the gentleman installing (although my bets are on the third! :-) -- Eric Schnoebelen eric@cirr.com schnoebe@convex.com ... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.