Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ispi!jbayer
From: jbayer@ispi.UUCP (Jonathan Bayer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Buying a 386 clone -- want advice
Message-ID: <555@ispi.UUCP>
Date: 20 Mar 89 14:38:34 GMT
References: <3177@imagen.UUCP> <1309@bucket.UUCP> <6173@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: jbayer@ispi.UUCP (Jonathan Bayer)
Organization: Intelligent Software Products, Inc.
Lines: 38

In article <6173@bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>
>...Interestingly enough, it turns out the the use of the ROM-BIOS
>makes operating systems *more* finicky about what hardware you run them
>on, not less.  A good example is the varous UNIXes.  One of the last
>things people worry about when running these is hardware-
>compatibility.
>
>If OS/2 is finicky about the machine, it's because it was deliberately
>written to be finicky.  UNIX isn't.

I beg to differ with you, however I will :-)  (this is not a flame)

MS-DOS uses the bios on the computer to do I/O with all the devices. 
Some programs bypass the bios and go directly to the hardware,
specifically the video card for speed.  (I know all about the special
backup programs which use the floppy).  This usually doesn't create
problems on DOS.

However, Xenix (and Unix) on these machines totally ignore the bios, and
go directly to the hardware.  If the hardware is not compatiable with
what the OS is looking for, it won't work.  I will mention that video
cards have this problem as well as hard disk controllers.  There are
several EGA and VGA cards which do not work with Xenix.  Likewise there
are a few hard disk controllers which do work on DOS but don't work on
Xenix.




JB


-- 
Jonathan Bayer			      Beware: The light at the end of the
Intelligent Software Products, Inc.	      tunnel may be an oncoming dragon
19 Virginia Ave.				...uunet!ispi!jbayer
Rockville Centre, NY 11570  (516) 766-2867    jbayer@ispi.UUCP