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From: urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de (Matthias Urlichs)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: We want UNIX! (on the Mac)
Message-ID: <1466@smurf.ira.uka.de>
Date: 31 Jan 90 19:39:12 GMT
References: <19800005@hpfilis.HP.COM> <26@newave.UUCP>
Sender: news@smurf.ira.uka.de
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, FRG
Lines: 42

In comp.sys.mac john@newave.UUCP (John A. Weeks III) writes:
< 
< Check out MacIDRIS from Whitesmiths.  [...]
< Their literature claims that MacIDRIS is a full POSIX implementation.
< 
< >What do I want?
< >   K-shell (scripts and command-line editing and environment variables)
< >   sed awk vi tail, head, cat, tr, pipes, more
< >In addition (but not necessary):  sort, split, tee, date
< 
< No ksh, but it has sh and I think csh.  Plus just about every standard
< UNIX utility.
< 
Except that the "sh" is unable to execute _any_ standard-UNIX shell script.
(No variable names > 1 character, no control structures other than && and ||,
heaps of other limitations.)

And except for the fact that the standard utilities sometimes have nonstandard
names, often nonstandard options, and/or produce nonstandard output.
F'r instance:
$ ls any/directory
any/directory

any/directory:
file1
file2
$

We use "head" to format a file header for printing, the Unix" head" is named
"first", so we'll have to rename "tail" to "last" to maintain what MacIDRIS
calls consistency.

< A/UX has a rather steep entry price--an '020 + MMU or '030, and, last I
< heard, it only comes on one of Apple's 80-Meg Drives.  A tape drive is
< all but requried convenient backup.
< 
You can also get it on floppies, or (last I heard) on CD-ROM; possibly also on
tape.
A/UX 1.1 has a driver for Apple's tape drive, but not for any other tape. This
is a major limitation, especially because a 150-MB cartridge tape costs 50% of
Apple's 40 MB drive, cartridges cost less but have five times the capacity,
and are six times faster. :-(