Coherent - Unix for $99.95 ??
dave berman
daveb at comspec.uucp
Mon Jul 16 16:21:13 AEST 1990
(Thomas Wong) writes:
> Hello. I have just read an ad in Byte magazine about a Unix implementation
> for IBM PC/ATs called Coherent. The claim in the ad is that
> "Coherent is a virtual clone of UNIX.... Coherent embodies the original
> /* Thomas Y. K. Wong INTERNET: thomas_wong at civil.ubc.ca */
> /* Civil Eng., U.B.C BITNET: thomas_wong%civil.ubc.ca at ubcmtsg */
> /* Van, B.C., Canada UUCP: ...!van-bc!civil.ubc.ca!thomas_wong */
The ad is kinda correct on all counts, but since there are a few things short,
you should not expect to be able to fire up a perfect site when you get your
package. Here are some quotes from other people...
>From comp.sys.ibm.pc Mon Jul 16 01:17:47 1990
>/ hpcvra:comp.sys.ibm.pc / tomg at deceds.dec.com ( The Final Frontier) / 5:58 pm Jun 22, 1990 /
>The tech support people at MW indicated that they
>were having problems with machines that have an AMI bios and
>also with certain types of Western Digital controllers.
>-Tom Gallo
I don't doubt that this is true, BUT;
Installing Coherent on my 20MHZ 386 Clone with AMI bios
is built by no one most people have heard of. I had a number of
problems not releated to the BIOS. After solving these annoying but
minor problems, Coherent works adequately for my needs. In fact
I'm pretty impressed for $99.
For the record, and in case this can help someone out the problems
were:
1. Upon installion the system reads the floppy disks to
uncompact and load the appropriate files into the correct directory.
I had been shipped a bad disk and so the boot procedure would
crash. This is appropriate I believe. After calling MW support
they sent me the replacement an impatient 2 weeks later. The
system loaded successfully after that,
2. After booting there was no cursor displayed. This turned
out to be the video interface card problem more the Coherents.
I use the ATI EGA 256K Wonder card which has an enhanced mode
hardware and software switch selectable option. The option puts the
characters into 8x14 font instead of the standard 8x8 font. After
reseting the video adapter's switch to non enhanced mode the cursor appeared.
Why this helps I can only guess but now everything is working correctly as
far as I can tell.
I would buy Coherent again since it makes a nice home unix system. IMHO one
gets a lot for his/her money. The thing it needs is
a. A csh or at least a ksh. I really miss alias and a history
stack,
b. A large memory model (I am willing to accept no disk paging
for a while at least),
c. A good vi editor. The EMACS (it's called "me") supplied is
okay but when your used to using one editor at work going home to use
another is a pain,
d. A BBS system to share some of those things the basenote
recommends,
e. and MWC needs a faster way of delivering disks to customers.
Two weeks is a long time when you've waited 1.5 months to get the original
order sent.
Howard Honig
Hewlett-Packard Co.
Corvallis Division
>From comp.sys.ibm.pc Mon Jul 16 01:18:31 1990
From: markad at blake.acs.washington.edu (Mark Donnell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Well, since everyone else has been passing on Coherent stories,
I think I will too. I received Coherent about 2 weeks ago (I got
it in about 12 days too). When I tried to boot it up, I got to the
'?' prompt, typed 'begin', and that was the end of that - reset
button time. It dumped a set of register contents, said something
like 'System Panic', and died. MWC had no real ideas, and Noone
on the net of Coherent mailing list had mentioned anything like that,
so I eventually sent it back (I probably would have had to anyway -
I needed to compile some rather large programs in it). Oh well.
I tried all of the 'black magic' that I could find - NumLock, Power
up instead of reboot, and something else I can't recall right now.
It could have been a bad disk, as someone on the net mentioned
recently, or it could have been machine incompatability.
In case you're interested, I'm on a Nascent (motherboard) 386-25,
discrete chip set, AMI (?)Aug 17, 1988 Bios, WD disk controller,
40 meg connor disk, teac 1.2M floppy, genoa vga.
Hope my experiences are as informative to you as they were to me. - Mark
>From comp.sys.ibm.pc Mon Jul 16 01:18:54 1990
From: dar at nucleus.mi.org (Dario Alcocer)
Organization: The Nucleus, Clarkston, MI U.S.A.
markad at blake.acs.washington.edu (Mark Donnell) writes:
>Well, since everyone else has been passing on Coherent stories,
I had the same problem with my 386 clone (AMI BIOS), but it was an
intermitten problem for me. It seemed to happen most after having
run MS-DOS, then did a soft-reboot; maybe the GDT is using the garbage
left in memory by the last DOS run...
Dario Alcocer | Internet: dar at nucleus.mi.org
Associate Software Engineer | voice: 619-673-2161, x5119
Emerald Systems | Standard disclaimers apply.
>From comp.sys.ibm.pc Mon Jul 16 01:19:20 1990
From: hania at utrcu1.UUCP (Simon Hania)
Organization: Utwente, Enschede
In article <1990Jul9.183442.22228 at nucleus.mi.org> dar at nucleus.mi.org (Dario Alcocer) writes:
>I had the same problem with my 386 clone (AMI BIOS), but it was an
>intermitten problem for me. It seemed to happen most after having
I am running Coherent on a Morse 386SX motherboard, AMI BIOS, WD clone
hard disk controller and Seagate ST225 and ST251-1 drives.
Rebooting Coherent with CTRL-ALT-DEL hangs the machine, rebooting MS-DOS
this way and starting Coherent leads to kernel panic at start-up.
Under MS-DOS I'm using QEMM, which puts the 386 in V8086 mode. This
probably is the cause.
I have to do a hard-reboot to switch between Coherent and MS-DOS and vv.
Simon Hania | Hania at UTwente.NL
| HANIA at HENUT5.BITNET
| hania at utrcu1.UUCP
>From comp.sys.ibm.pc Mon Jul 16 01:23:21 1990
From: miket at mars.cs.umbc.edu (Mike Taube)
Organization: University of Maryland Baltimore County
Well, I've just gotten fed up with Coherent.. Here are just a few reasons why:
1) uncompress will only work 12bits and below. 99% of the stuff on
the uunet gateways is compressed with 16bits
2) the editor will not allow you to edit moderately sized files.. it
truncates them.. and worse, the version of microemacs is pathetic.
no c-mode is built in, that is.
3) the ``scat'' program that comes with coherent is supposed to be
like the Unix ``more'' program. HA! the Return key scrolls the
screen, while the Space bar gives you lines at a time. Totally
opposite ``more''.
4) A program as small as ``less'', which is like Unix's ``more'', but
more (pardon the pun), is too LARGE for Coherent.
5) No csh. For me, no csh implies no real job control, aliases,
or history
Now tell me, if I can't even compile a file browser program, then how am I
suppposed to build any kind of applications with this? Granted, I understand
that "you get what you pay for", but how can they say that this is comparable
to SCO ??? Mike Taube
MikeT at cs.umbc.edu MIKET at UMBC2.BITNET
MikeT at umbc5.umbc.edu ....uunet!umbc3!miket
Note from me, Dave Berman: I *WAS* able to get 'less' to compile and run. It
required a few littlchanges in the makefile...
Further note: I kinda like the program. If you are real bad or new with Unix,
then this experience at installation and use will probably give you a poor
foundataion for the real thing (wait for next version). If you are real good
with Unix (*nix) then the differences between Coherent and what you are using
now will get under your nails.
I think it seems to work. I am slowly getting used to its ways. It includes
the compiler, and editor, and stuff you need to be creative. I tried (once) to
port over a copy of uncompress (16bit) to the Coherent, but I had too much
trouble, and ran out of time.
Disclaimer Department: I don't work for Mark Williams, related firms, or its
advertising company. The company I work for shares my opinions, sometimes 2,
or even 3 years after I suggest the idea...but never before that. We use SCO
in house for everything, but are always on the lookout for something good that
doesn't cost too much. It's so *hard* to evaluate an entire operating
system... And last, but not least, when it comes to *nix, I am 80% user, 10%
programmer, and 10% binders and fillers.
--
Dave Berman
436 Perth Av #U-907 daveb at comspec.UUCP Computer at work
Toronto Ontario uunet!mnetor!becker!comspec!daveb
Canada M6P 3Y7 416-785-3668 Fax at work
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