Using MS-DOS with the UNIX* system ?

[Leslie Mikesell]

In article <1991May01.141751.2332 at bluemoon.uucp> grant at bluemoon.uucp (Grant DeLorean) writes:
> Why not just get the the UNIX version of WP and be done with it? No problems,
>no hassles and actually less cost than having enough DOS version licenses
>to have several people legally using it at once.

Since I brought the issue up this time around, I'll explain a bit more.
We have an AT&T starlan network with around 100 PC's connected to a
few unix machines acting as fileservers.  I use a 386 machine under unix for
development that can RFS mount the directories available in the production
servers.  If VP/ix worked correctly, I could run WP on my own machine
to test setups and help users with problems without needing a second
machine in my office to run DOS.  As it turns out, I do need the
second machine.

>It is also less strain
>on system resources since there isn't the VP/ix overhead to deal with.

Right, I wouldn't think about real production under VP/ix.  However,
the network solution is even better given the PC's on the desktops.
We run about 35 users per server - I don't think that would be
comfortable doing terminal emulation with the unix version.  And in
any case the unix version wasn't available at the time we installed
the network, and many of the users still need to run other programs
that are only available for DOS and to integrate the output of those
programs with their wordprocessor.

>I don't get why so many people are anxious to slam WP, the company provides
>good support free of charge (at least the UNIX division) and a product
>that does what it is supposed to do and does it well.

I wasn't slamming WP at all (though I have encountered some other problems
with it...).  In this case the problem is with VP/ix aka AT&T's Simultask.
The Locus DOS Merge product doesn't appear to have the same trouble.

>I won't even go
>into the fact that the folks complaining probably bought one DOS license
>and are complaining about it not supporting 10 users at once over a
>network...

And just as well you didn't because we do in fact have a DOS license for
everyone who uses it, and it does in fact support them over a network.

Les Mikesell
  les at chinet.chi.il.us