Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ucsd!nosc!humu!uhccux!yuan
From: yuan@uhccux.UUCP (Yuan Chang)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: PC-MOS....true ???
Message-ID: <1650@uhccux.UUCP>
Date: 9 Mar 88 04:48:44 GMT
References: <521@wa3wbu.UUCPo <923@unccvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: yuan@uhccux.UUCP (Yuan Chang)
Organization: U. of Barbarians.  Honolulu, Hawaii
Lines: 65
Summary: Possible, but not necessarily good

In article <923@unccvax.UUCP] mru@unccvax.UUCP (Markus Ruppel) writes:
]in article <521@wa3wbu.UUCPo, john@wa3wbu.UUCP (John Gayman) says:
]o 
]o      A freind came to me the other day seeking advise to multi-user
]o environments. I of course mentioned the various flavors of Unix. He
]o needs it to run on an AT-class machine.  
]o 
]o      Anyway, he kept bringing up PC-MOSS by The Software Link. Apparently
]PC-MOS !

	I don't recall seeing a version of PC-MOS for non-386 machines.  
For an AT, you'll Multi-Link (which is about half as usable as PC-MOS).

]o 1. Have up to 4 users on a XT and 5-9 users on an AT, all running
]o simultaneous.
]
]I haven't seen a MU ( multiuser version )  of PC-MOS so far !

	It is being advertised.

]o 2. All users can be simultaneously running ANY MS-DOS application on
]o    a *dumb* terminal. When they say dumb, they mean even like an ADM-3!!
]o    And they dont say just character-based applications, they say ANYTHING.
 
]This is impossible ! On an XT for example there is no way to trap 
]direct screen writes of applications, because the 8088/86 doesn't 
]support any kind of memory protection levels ( as the - brain damaged
]- 80286 and - much better - 80386 do ) .

	Check what you know before you write.  PC-MOS on '386 machine 
will be able to trap writes to video RAM.  Also there are programs 
included with PC-MOS (and Multi-Link) that'll modify your program to
use BIOS to write to screen, instead of direct memory writes.  Problem
is that not every program can be modified to do that, and that 
graphic applications will *definitely* not run on a dumb terminal.
They do sell graphic terminals which can work with graphic applications
though...  Also, most well-behaved programs will use BIOS to write to
screen, instead of writing directly to memory.
	
]o     I'm at a loss!  I mean, after he read me the information they sent
]o it sounds impossible. 
]
]IT IS IMPOSSIBLE !!!!!!!!!!

	Not totally.
 
]o                       The ads read like it's Unix and DOS all rolled
]o into a happy union.  I can't beleive that if this were truely "God's
]o gift to the computer world" that I wouldn't "know" of someone using
]o it.  Can anyone in Net-land shed some light on this ??  I mean, is it
]o a farce or are there some nasty restrictions that you dont find out about
]o till *after* you buy ???   I always assumed from the ads that it was a 
]o Windows/Desqview-like environment, but no-holds-bared, true, DOS,
]o mutli-user/multi-tasking ??   I say naaaa.   Input please so I can
]o save this guy. :-)

	There are restrictions.  Best way of running multi-user/multi-
tasking applications is to run Xenix.  MS-DOS programs just aren't
written to be multitasked ('386 can get around that, but a '286
can't).  

-- 
Yuan Chang 
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