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From: ittfb@dcatla.UUCP (Thomas F. Blakely)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: QNX anyone?
Message-ID: <2030@dcatla.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Nov-87 09:18:12 EST
Article-I.D.: dcatla.2030
Posted: Tue Nov  3 09:18:12 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Nov-87 05:33:23 EST
References: <2540@umn-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: ittfb@dcatla.UUCP (Thomas F. Blakely)
Distribution: na
Organization: DCA Inc., Alpharetta, GA
Lines: 42
Xref: mnetor comp.unix.xenix:1104 comp.sys.ibm.pc:9737

In article <2540@umn-cs.UUCP> amit@umn-cs.UUCP (Neta Amit) writes:
>Would anyone with experience in QNX and either SCO Xenix or uPort
>compare them for the rest of us? Issues of interest might be: 
>- Compatability with Sys V; Stability; Technical support; 
It's not Unix, system V or otherwise.  Libraries are _very_ different
(other than standard i/o functions).  It has more Unix-like utilities
with every release (grep, make, etc.) but still has room for improvement
there.  It's *MUCH* smaller than unix, however.
>- Quality of C compiler, debugger (windows?), runtime environment;
Excellent, but not quite standard C compiler (has "extensions"), limited
to 64K code and 128K data, which is not a practical limitation since
shared libraries are possible (standard library is shared).  Debugger
is primitive at best, machine level only.  Multitasking seems excellent
(ie., no spurious crashes), intertask communications very usable.  Manuals
better than they were, still need work.
>- Hardware support (multifunction, video, disk controller boards)
Supports AST, Quadboard and other clocks.  I was able to write one for the
clock on my turbo XT clone (an obscure one).  Uses any disk controller.
Many are supported with real-time drivers, others use BIOS driver, which
blocks other tasks when accessing disk (not a serious problem most of the
time).  Supports CGA, Mono; I don't know about EGA, others.
>- Invoking DOS as a task, and running business oriented software.
The version of QDOS that I was running would only work on an XT, not on
several clones I tried it with (problems with BIOS hard disk driver).
Quantum claims to have this fixed now,
>-- 
>  Neta Amit 
>  U of Minnesota CSci
>  Arpanet: amit@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu
Caveats:  I have not tried the networked versions of QNX.  I have also
not used the 286 protected-mode version (I have run the non-protected
AT version).  Note also that the boot disk is copy protected.  I have been
unable to get QNX to boot from the hard disk, but I didn't try very hard.

Overall, I have been fairly impressed with QNX, but I don't use it much
since there's little 3rd party software available for it.  I've used it
mostly for development with a cross-assembler we wrote, and for a
dedicated pc-based lab controller.  I encountered no serious bugs in either
of these uses.

SDA.
T. Blakely