Pity the poor 286 folk

[Charles Hedrick]

The whole discussion about doing VM on the 286 may have been
misleading.  The fact is, it isn't entirely Microport's decision.
They just do device drivers and various details for what is basically
an ATT/Intel product, System V/286.  I don't think Microport has the
resources to do their own 286 port of System V from scratch.  If I'm
right, we won't have VM on the 286 until ATT and Intel decide to
produce a 286 port of SVr3 or SVr4.  I've not seen any evidence that
they are interested in doing that.  ATT seems to be concentrating on
putting new features into SVr4, and on getting the 386 port right.
They aren't even doing VAX ports anymore.  So I find it hard to
believe that they're going to do a new 286 port.  We can reasonably
expect Microport to fix the various problems with SV/AT, including
serial line performance, floating point, give us support for newer
disks, and do various other neat new things.  But I'd be very
surprised to see them do a basic new kernel.  Happily surprised you
understand, but surprised.