The purpose of this group...

[David Mason]

In article <5683 at seac.UUCP> wain at seac.UUCP (Wain Dobson) writes:
>In article <953 at digi.lonestar.org> dmason at digi.lonestar.org (David Mason) writes:
>>In article <5680 at seac.UUCP> wain at seac.UUCP (Wain Dobson) writes:
>>>In article <26E3F766.2F57 at tct.uucp> chip at tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
>>>>...is to discuss "MS-DOS running under Unix by whatever means."
>>>>
>>>>So to get the ball rolling:  Those who have used both Merge/386 and
>>>>VP/ix, which do you prefer?
>>>>-- 
>>>My preference is for Merge386 as implemented under SCO ODT. It is a
>>>nice piece of work. 
>>>
>>
>>The $64 question: why?  
[stuff deleted]
>>I have not used ODT, but I have seen some demos
>>and it looks pretty nice all around.  I'm glad to see that Merge is
>>popular, since integration with DOS would be one of my key factors in
>                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Real wrong choices of words. Real hard not to flame. :-) ODT-DOS is only
>a mere process under ODT. And I think is would be really nice if this
>group could get across to people this small fact.

Does answering a simple question require a flame?  If I had ever used
Merge or VP/ix, I would not have needed to ask about them.  I had assumed
they both run as subprocesses under UNIX, and asked about UNIX-DOS
integration in an attempt to find out how easy it is to transfer files
and access data and hardware from the different environments.
For example, I understand that Merge lets you run a DOS program from the
UNIX command line.  Does VP/ix do this or does it use an OS2-style
compatibility box?  How about graphics, particularly VGA?  If I lose
the advantages of Dos under UNIX if I want graphics, I might as well
get back into my DOS partition and run it native.  Someone else said that
VP/ix requires a modified kernel while Merge does not.  What are the
implications of this?  VP/ix may be harder to maintain, but is there
a reward for the extra effort?

>Warning! If you want to turn your UNIX machine into a DOS machine,
>you'll pay the
>price in more ways than you can imagine. ...
[more stuff deleted]
>UNIX is UNIX, and I happen to be one of those people whom grind their
>teeth at even the mere existence of DOS. But then again clients are
>clients, and the ODT-DOS implementation is highly functional. What 

Ahh, those crazy clients.  No taste at all in software, eh?
They probably don't care about anything except getting their work done.
If DOS didnt have the largest installed user base in the world
and the largest amount of quality business and productivity software
out there, you purists wouldnt have these problems.  Perhaps you've
forgotten that DOS dates back to the days of 8088 based machines with
64K RAM.  Since modern hardware has far outstripped the original
constraints put on DOS, is it any wonder that DOS under UNIX is a
popular topic?  Come out of the lab and get a life.

(My apologies to the net if this sounded harsh.  It was "real hard
not to flame." ;^> )

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Dave Mason                           Party on, dudes!
DSC Communications  M/S 121
1000 Coit Rd, Plano TX 75075         The opinions expressed herein are
INET: dmason at digi.lonestar.org       not necessarily mine or those of
UUCP: ...!texsun!digi!dmason         my employer.
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