Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!sjsca4!molehill!poffen
From: poffen@molehill (Russ Poffenberger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Was - Re: Xerox sues Apple!!! Now processor wars.
Message-ID: <1990Jan4.172835.2493@sj.ate.slb.com>
Date: 4 Jan 90 17:28:35 GMT
References: <6767@tank.uchicago.edu> <1989Dec17.112127.27333@me.toronto.edu> <3368@rti.UUCP> <899@lzaz.ATT.COM> <1989Dec29.165724.12683@sj.ate.slb.com> <199@tw-rnd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
Reply-To: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger)
Organization: Schlumberger ATE, San Jose, CA
Lines: 28

In article <199@tw-rnd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> jml@tw-rnd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Michael Lodman) writes:
>In article <1989Dec29.165724.12683@sj.ate.slb.com> poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger) writes:
>>AT THE SAME TIME. We are NOT talking emulation, but TRUE multiple operating
>>systems co-existing. That's how the Sun 386i does their DOS compatibility. Just
>>assign a chunk of memory, and away you go.
>
>I thought the 386i ran a version of VP/ix. Hardly what I would call
>an operating system. DOS doesn't use virtual memory. Your statement
>would possible be true for any OS constrained as DOS is.

I am not sure what the roots are for the OS for the Sun 386i, but it is pretty
much Sunos which is based on BSD unix.
In the 386 architecture, you can partition the memory to look like a number
of independent '86 machines. It is called virtual '86 mode. By assigning
a chunk of memory (640K) in this virtual mode, you can run MSDOS in it without
it knowing that other operating systems are also running on the same machine.

>I really >don't think OS/2 and Unix would cooperate very well running at the
>same time.

Certainly a small amount of work might have to be done when it comes to
sharing peripherals, but it could be done.

Russ Poffenberger               DOMAIN: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com
Schlumberger Technologies       UUCP:   {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!poffen
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