UNIX or XENIX??

[Marshall Feldman]

Regarding VP/IX.

I haven't used VP/IX, but from what I've read it's similar to MERGE/386
from Locus.  The question on running "DOS tasks in the background" seems
confused.  First, Merge let's you run *several* (as many as memory and
other machine resources permit) DOS sessions in the foreground.  For example,
you can start LOTUS as one session and WordPerfect as another *at the same
time*.  You move from session to session by using a hot-key sequence.

In UNIX parlance, running a task in the background usually means running
the task in noninteractive mode.  This is possible with MERGE/386, and again
the restrictions are the same as for any other UNIX tasks: memory size
and other resources limit the number of tasks that can be run simultaneously.
However, relatively few DOS applications are designed to be run in a
noninteractive mode, so I'm not sure this is really what you want.

Beyond this, there are several other advantages of running DOS under UNIX:
    1) Files are protected by UNIX file security (this is important in a
university environment where relatively few PC's are truly personal).
I have no qualms about letting my eleven-year-old (or even worse, his
Luddite mother) play around with their files on my hard disk at home.
    2) All of UNIX's utilities (cron, uucp, etc.) are available.  Some of these
(e.g. cron) do things that are impossible under DOS (like automatically
have your machine call another at a preassigned time on a regular basis).
    3) Commercial software is *much* cheaper for DOS, particularly as a
university.  Note that the degradation under MERGE is not that bad (at least
when only one DOS session is running).  A 16 or 20MHz '386 runs about as
fast as a 10 or so MHz 286 DOS-only machine.
    4) Shell scripts, etc. can be used to manage DOS in ways Bill Gates
never dreamed of.

>From what I've read, VP/IX and MERGE/386 are pretty similar.  VP/IX seems
more oriented towards the DOS user coming over to UNIX, while MERGE works
the other way around.  Yet they seem to have fundamentally the same
capabilities.  Also note that SCO sells VP/IX for XENIX, but is using
MERGE in its new Open Desktop (ODT) package.  That may or may not influence
your decision.  Also *be absolutely sure* your graphics board is compatible
with the package you buy.  Otherwise you may find you can only run CGA
or text applications.

Contact me directly if you have any questions.