Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!watmath!mks!wheels From: wheels@mks.UUCP (Gerry Wheeler) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: QNX Operating System Keywords: operating system Message-ID: <935@mks.UUCP> Date: 15 May 89 18:06:25 GMT References: <634@pmafire.UUCP> Organization: Mortice Kern Systems, Waterloo, Ont. Lines: 38 In article <634@pmafire.UUCP>, alan@pmafire.UUCP (alan herbst) writes: > Does anyone have any experience with the QNX operating system by Quantum > Software Systems, Kanata, Ontario? I did some work for Quantum once, and used QNX for a couple of years. It is very good, with a couple of caveats. One is that QNX is close to Unix, but not quite. For example, the options to their commands are often different that Unix's. And if you're a programmer, their system calls are just close enough to be frustrating. However, I understand they are cleaning things up in this area. The second caveat is that there are few commercial packages available for QNX due to its low profile. However, since it will run most DOS programs (by running DOS as a QNX task), this may not be a problem. QNX has extremely good interrupt response, and is frequently used in machine controllers. It has very good networking capabilities. These are useful, because QNX is a message-passing system, and tasks can send messages to tasks on other nodes as easily as on the same node. Any device can be shared with any other node, including hard disks, modems, printers, etc., with little effort. This means that file servers can be set up easily, and they need not be dedicated. I have long thought that QNX would be ideal for setting up a multi-user bulletin board. -- Gerry Wheeler Phone: (519)884-2251 Mortice Kern Systems Inc. UUCP: uunet!watmath!mks!wheels 35 King St. North BIX: join mks Waterloo, Ontario N2J 2W9 CompuServe: 73260,1043 -- Gerry Wheeler Phone: (519)884-2251 Mortice Kern Systems Inc. UUCP: uunet!watmath!mks!wheels 35 King St. North BIX: join mks Waterloo, Ontario N2J 2W9 CompuServe: 73260,1043