Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mtxinu!shore
From: shore@mtxinu.COM (Melinda Shore)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Re: binary Mach distribution for 386
Message-ID: <1991Jan4.192604.16772@mtxinu.COM>
Date: 4 Jan 91 19:26:04 GMT
References: <13963@uswat.UUCP> <1991Jan4.140341.11874@granite.cr.bull.com>
Reply-To: shore@mtxinu.com (Melinda Shore)
Organization: mt Xinu, Berkeley
Lines: 25

In article <1991Jan4.140341.11874@granite.cr.bull.com> kittlitz@granite.cr.bull.com (Edward N. Kittlitz) writes:
>I received the same card and made a brief enquiry. I was told that there
>is no SCSI support (yet?). Also, there is apparently no binary compatability
>support (ABI?) for System V.3. (after all, I believe
>we are talking about BSD emulation). If this is correct, you won't
>have the same flexibility in buying binary-only applications, most
>of which are V.3 SCO/ISC.

All of the above is true. Our customers have traditionally been
engineering/software types - technically sophisticated and interested
in the technology itself.  We envision our potential customer base for
the Mach binary product to be very much the same - software development
houses who want to start getting involved with Mach and OSF/1 early,
people who want interesting technology for their home machines, users
who specifically want a BSD system interface, and so on.  We are not
in competition with SCO, ISC, or the other vendors of small Unix
systems - what we're selling is completely different, and not really
suitable for use as a black box to stick a database or word processor
on.  The executable format is almost identical to BSD a.out, and we
haven't considered adding ABI support.  That's not to say we never
will, but if we do it won't be for a very, very long time.
-- 
               Software longa, hardware brevis
Melinda Shore                                 shore@mtxinu.com
mt Xinu                              ..!uunet!mtxinu.com!shore