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From: mwm@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Software costs..
Message-ID: <867@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 30-Mar-85 23:32:18 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbtopaz.867
Posted: Sat Mar 30 23:32:18 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 2-Apr-85 06:58:25 EST
References: <9254@brl-tgr.ARPA> <543@intelca.UUCP> <5337@utzoo.UUCP> <1549@watcgl.UUCP> <5355@utzoo.UUCP> <1588@watcgl.UUCP>
Reply-To: mwm@ucbtopaz.UUCP (Praiser of Bob)
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
Lines: 26
Summary: 

In article <1588@watcgl.UUCP> jchapman@watcgl.UUCP writes:
> I can get msdos (not a great system but it works), an assembler,
> linker, pascal compiler, fortran compiler, modula compiler and
> a screen editor for under $1000 - what will software support
> for other machines cost? 

For the 68K family:

$350	CP/M-68K, with C compiler, assembler, linker and (lousy) editor
$50	RED screen editor. Others (mince) are available.
	F77, Forth, APL and LISP are all available. Probably others.

Of course, CP/M isn't quite as nice a system as MSDOS. So...

$600	OS/9-68K, with C compiler, assembler, linker and screen editor.
	LISP and Forth are available.  Also BASIC09, a Pascal with BASICs
	concept of types.

OS/9 is a much better system than MSDOS, or CCP/M, or Concurrent DOS,
etc. A good case can be made for OS/9 being a better system than Unix.

In other words, the cost is comparable to MSDOS. The result is a much
nicer system: multi-tasking, multi-user, with enough address space to
let me run a LISP system comfortably.

	<mike