Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!steinmetz!davidsen
From: davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Re: VP/ix could be good...
Message-ID: <13054@steinmetz.ge.com>
Date: 30 Jan 89 18:43:12 GMT
References: <5980005@hplsla.HP.COM>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 53

In article <5980005@hplsla.HP.COM> jeffh@hplsla.HP.COM (Jeff Harrell) writes:

|        3) IT'S BUGGY- I've found a number or "unexplainable" lock=ups,
|                       missing key strokes, sluggish keyboard response,
|                       (what the heck happened?) stuff...

  It's not bug-free, but I haven't seen anything like the number of
problems you imply. I don't lose keystrokes, for instance, even in
programs which poll instead of using the keyboard BIOS call.

|        4) DOS APPLICATIONS DON'T WORK- Several DOS pplications don't!
|                       Try saving a "FIRST CHOICE" file for example. 
|                       Or try using 800X600 drivers..

  Graphics stuff using foreign drivers doesn't work, agreed. I would
love to use the 640x480 EGA card I have, not spend $k or so for a VGA
and monitor.

|        6) HUMAN INTERFACE- My wife uses an XT at school. We've got a
|                            20MHz 386, 4MB ram, 80MB disk, 20MHz 80387 
|                            and a Paradise VGA+ card with a multi-sync
|                            monitor. In VP/ix she complains that our 
|                            system is SLOWER than the XT she uses at
|                            school??? 

  Let's just say I disagree with you... screen updates may be somewhat
slower than a dedicated DOS machine, but I see no reason to believe that
disk and CPU are significantly impacted.

|        7) SERIAL MOUSE- It works- off and on.

  The mouse with the Dell325 seems to work pretty well, and someone else
here is using one on a Compaq running Windows. I have heard horror
stories, but I haven't seen it myself.

|        8) TIME OF DAY- runs slowwwwwwww.

  Yes. I update the time of day from the hardware clock, and set the
hardware clock from NBS. There is a command to diddle the clock rate
(sorry, can't remember it) which I haven't tried. I think I looked at it
and decided the documentation was bad, even for UNIX. I'm not sure that
VP/ix is the cause, since I see time drift with 2.3.1 even without VP/ix
running (but it is on the disk).
________________________________________________________________

My big botch is that I can't make CGI work. I had it working with 2.2.1
(upgraded to 2.2.3) and VP/ix beta, but it just flat won't work with the
new version. Now instead of using a separate DOS machine for parallel
graphics development, I can use a separate Xenix machine.
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me