Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!husc6!hao!noao!mcdsun!mcdchg!usenet
From: blair@chinet.UUCP (Douglas M. Blair)
Newsgroups: comp.unix
Subject: Re: Microport 5.3, DOS-Merge, and NDP Fortran
Message-ID: <3322@mcdchg.UUCP>
Date: 6 Jan 88 19:52:13 GMT
References: <2739@mcdchg.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@mcdchg.UUCP
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 57
Approved: usenet@mcdchg.UUCP

In article <2739@mcdchg.UUCP> you write:
>   1) Any comments on the quality of the implementation of the Microport
>      Unix?

First of all, we run microport sysV/386 on a 386 clone from Trillian Power
Systems with 4 meg ram, 80 meg HD, ega display. We are a Beta test site for
DOS Merge 386, which is not yet released in final version.

Their uinix seems to work just fine - however our shipment included a
product called sysviz, designed to take the place of the sysadm utilities.
They sent the 286 version which does not include HDB networking utilities,
so it attempted to write all sorts of wrong files in the wrong places. The
regular sysadm utilities work OK with HDB.

>     
>   2) How PC DOS compatible is DOS-Merge?
>     
As of this writing the Beta 0.2 release does not support all EGA cards.
Mine included, doggone it. DOS Merge DOES run just about anything that
does not make direct bios calls to the hard disk. It runs all the Turbo
languages from Borland, Sidekick, Lotus 123, etc.  I have had some
difficulty in getting my mouse to work - this is prbably because Merge
maps com1 and com2 to /dev/tty whatever &Hnand must go through
some sort of translator back and forth, which introduces a delay.
Communications Packages, such as Mirror 2 or Crosstalk, also seem to
have problems at baud rates > 2400 for the same reason, but if you have
unix, cu, uucp and so on who needs a terminal emulator?

>   3) Can MS Windows 1.X or greater runs under DOS-Merge?
>     
Can't help you there - but I imagine that once they get the EGA support
bugs out it should.

>   4) Any comments on Microway's NDP FORTRAN 386 running under Microport's Unix
>     
No
>   5) Can I switch between Unix and DOS easily?
>     
Yes. You can enter the DOS environment from any unix directory, which
becomes your MSDOS root. Beware of long pathnames - MSDOS has a limit of
(I think) 32 characters. There is a utility called dosadmin which lets
you set up the dos environment for variuous programs. Once dosadmined
you can eneter a dos program directly from unix.  You can also run unix
programs and utilities under the dos session with the *on* or *newunix*
commands - they spawn a new shell.  

unix and dos handle carriage returns differently in text files. There
are dos2unix and unix2dos utilities which strip or add newlines to
ascii text files, so you can walk these back and forth.

Hope this helps!

You might also look in a NEW newsgroup I just noticed: comp.unix.microport

Doug Blair
{.... ihnp4}!chinet!obdient!blair
312-653-5527