S1 information - more details

[Jack Griffith]

[................]
	I received the literature concerning S1 (See July 84 issue of Computer
	Design for a description of this OS) from Multi Solutions a couple
	of days ago and they claim to have configurations RIGHT NOW (DON'T
	BELIEVE EVEN THIS CLAIM UNTIL YOU'VE READ FURTHER) for the following 
	machines:

		DataMedia 932
		IBM 9000
		NCR Tower
		CompuPro System 68k
		Dual CPU/68000M
		IBC ENSIGN
		Sage 6 (A misprint; should be Sage IV according to Multi Sol.)
		SORD 68
		Pertek 3200

	The literature is dated July 1984 and has claims for the following
	machines and dates:

	  By 9/84:

		IBM PC
		NEC APC
		Televideo TS 1603
		Convergent Tech AWS, IWS
		Burroughs B20/B22/B25

	  By 10/84:

		HP Series 200 Model 16
		Apple Lisa
		TRS 80
		COMPAQ

	Ports for the following chips, dates, and prices:
	(The prices quoted from the literature are for pre-configured systems
	with all advertised utilites; OEM configurable versions are around
	$100.00 less; languages (C, Fortran, Basic, Pascal) are another ~350.00 )

		68000	  	Now		950.00
		Z80	  		Now		375.00
		8080	  		Now		250.00
		8085	  		Now		250.00
		8086/88		7/84		495.00
		80186		8/84		600.00
		80286		10/84	1100.00
		16032		12/84	950.00


	I called Multi Solutions and asked about new literature with revised
	dates and they said that the date for the 8086 was now 1st quarter of
	1985 and the others were proportionally pushed out (no new literature
	yet).

	I then asked about availability and current installations. Their
	reply was that they are currently negotiating with OEM distributers
	(that supposedly would also distribute single total configurations),
	as they don't have the customer support available to contend with 
	marketing the product themselves. The most promising distributer
	happened to be based in Sweden they said.

	They also say that they have "only" been advertising since 1/84 and 
	wouldn't get the customer base they want by retail marketing themselves. 

	The final word is, as I see it (perhaps someone can dispute this),
	there are NO current installations (outside of possible test sites) NOR 
	is the product available currently.

Jack Griffith, Tektronix, Inc.  jackg at tektronix.UUCP
MaBell:		(503) 627-6352