Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!snorkelwacker!spdcc!dyer From: dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix Subject: Re: Some really easy questions (batteries not included) Keywords: RAM, DOS emulation, other junk Message-ID: <1047@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM> Date: 31 Dec 89 20:55:42 GMT References: <4792@emory.mathcs.emory.edu> <67@penrij.LS.COM> Reply-To: dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA Lines: 31 In article <67@penrij.LS.COM> soup@penrij.LS.COM (John Campbell) writes: >> 3) Are the DOS emulators out there reasonably robust? Also, >> are they reasonably cheap? > > I hope you're kidding :-) IBM's AIX is the first with the > "dos merge" that seems to do a really decent job. What do > they know that we don't? IBM's "DOS Merge" is more or less just a repackaging of Locus's "Merge 386", back a couple of rev levels. I'd expect that SCO's Locus offering should be as good, if not better. >> 4) Am I going to be sorely dissappointed after working on Sun's all day? > > Well, X-windows on a PS/2-80 @ 20MHz doesn't impress me, but it > _does_ seem to pull even with a Sun 2/120 I once worked with. Beats > me what kind of overhead Motif is gonna impose... Weird. A lot of this depends on the server and the display card you're running on, after taking into account obvious issues like adequate physical memory and the presence of a math co-processor. I routinely run X11 under AIX PS/2 on an 8514A card, both in monochrome (8507) and in color (8514). Its performance on a 20mhz PS/2 is fully competitive with any Sun 3/60 or an RT Mod 125. It didn't even occur to me to think that there was an intrinsic performance problem. BTW, Motif is a bit of a memory hog; you'll probably want to add on a few meg more. -- Steve Dyer dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer dyer@arktouros.mit.edu, dyer@hstbme.mit.edu