From: 386users@TWG.COM To: 386users@TWG.COM Date: Mon, 24 Apr 89 14:49:02 EDT 80386 User's mailing list vol 4 #25 Apr 14, 1989 In this issue: Hi-res mode and Windows 386... Leaping into the 386 world MSC PC Mouse Bus Plus + Windows/386 + Toshiba 5200 Problem Question Re: 386 memory [ 4 msgs ] Transporting Hard Disks Re: VM/386 Re: Why unix doesn't catch on [ edited ] The addresses for the list are now: 386users@TWG.COM - for contributions to the list or ...!uunet!TWG.COM!386users 386users-request@TWG.COM - for administrivia or ...!uunet!TWG.COM!386users-request P L E A S E N O T E If you want to get on or off the list, or change your address, please mail to the 386users-request address, or the message will be delayed by having to hand forward it (for your convenience, not mine). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dan@rna.UUCP (Dan Ts'o) Rockefeller University - Neurobiology Subject: Hi-res mode and Windows 386... Date: 4 Apr 89 06:57:14 GMT I'm planning to get a 386 machine with a Hi-res video card/monitor (800x600 or 1024x768). I would like to run Windows 386. Many of the program I'll run are standard apps (i.e. not Windows programs, just ordinary MESSDOS programs). I want to know if I can run several of these programs simultaneously such that each will have a substantially, if not completely unobscured standard text display window. That is, more than one complete 80x25 text window. To make it even clearer: a standard EGA display has 640x350 pixels. This EGA display can display one full text screen of 80x25 (actually even 80x43). Since 1024x768 can swallow two complete EGA pixels-worth with room to spare, I would hope that such a Hi-res display can give you at least two if not more full 80x25 text windows for 2 or more standard apps (non-Windows) programs. Will Windows 386 do this ? (I have heard "support engineers" grumble that standard apps programs use the "system font" and thus cannot be squeezed into small windows with small fonts... grumble, grumble...) Please email responses. Thanks. Cheers, Dan Ts'o 212-570-7671 Dept. Neurobiology dan@rna.rockefeller.edu Rockefeller Univ. ...cmcl2!rna!dan 1230 York Ave. rna!dan@nyu.edu NY, NY 10021 tso@rockefeller.arpa tso@rockvax.bitnet ------------------------------ From: tbray@watsol.waterloo.edu (Tim Bray) New Oxford English Dictionary Project, U. of Waterloo, Ontario Subject: Leaping into the 386 world Date: 7 Apr 89 14:02:10 GMT Here at the New OED project we've developed some Unix software products that we're selling successfully to the world. To this point, we haven't had 386 versions, but we are getting a lot of interest from people with those systems. So we plan to buy one, do the port, and get into that market. (The programs are ultra-portable, so should be easy). So here's the plan: buy a 386 box (Zenith is cheapest through the campus micro store, I have sentimental attachment to Compaq from a previous job, IBM is safest), some big disks, and the 2 or 3 most popular versions of 386 unix, and we're off to the races. Questions: 1. I gather from this group that the popular 386 Unixes are SCO, Microport, Interactive Systems, and Bell Tech. That cover the market? 2. Can I successfully build software for all these Unixes on a single host? At the cost of how much inconvenience? Is COFF real? 3. Can I successfully plug the 386 into the ethernet with the Suns and Vaxes and move stuff around? How about NFS? 4. Any hardware to stay away from? Is my sentimental attachment to Compaq justified? Is IBM worth the premium price? 5. Any other ugly gotchas that are gonna get me? Thanks in advance. Answer by mail; if there's sufficient interest I'll summarize to the net. Tim Bray, New OED Project, U of Waterloo tbray@watsol.waterloo.edu ------------------------------ From: spence@psych.uucp (Ian Spence) Psychology, U. of Toronto Subject: MSC PC Mouse Bus Plus + Windows/386 + Toshiba 5200 Problem Date: 2 Apr 89 01:00:09 GMT When I install Windows/386 on my Toshiba 5200 (4Mb RAM) with NO pointing device specified, everything works perfectly. When I specify MSC MSMOUSE Bus Plus (using IRQ 10, Port 338) and make the appropriate drivers available to Windows Setup, everything apparently goes smoothly. Windows/386 runs normally, and the mouse functions as it should. But, the only applications that can run are Windows Applications (such as CLOCK, NOTEPAD, ETC). If I try to run ANYTHING else there is an immediate crash back to MSDOS 3.3 with the error message "FatalError 0x0404". This error is not listed in the Windows documentation. BTW, the mouse works perfectly with all kinds of other software, e.g. Ventura 1.1, QuickC. I've tried every possible combination of things I can think of (including trying to use IRQ 15 with Port 238; funnily the MSC TEST program reports IRQ 12 even though the jumper is on 15). Anyone have any ideas? Anyone at MSC Technologies listening? Or Microsoft? ------------------------------ From: cc1@cs.ucla.edu (Max Kislik) UCLA Computer Club Subject: Question Re: 386 memory Date: 5 Apr 89 19:14:20 GMT I have a 386 AT clone with a MICRONICS 20 Mhz board and 1 MB of RAM. I tried to access the 384k of expanded? memory it is supposed to have, but without any success. No version of RAMdisk drivers recognized that I had any expanded or extended memory. Programs that check how much extended/expanded memory computers have show 0 expanded and 0 extended memory. I am sure, though, that the computer does have 1 MB on board (I counted the chips). How the hell can I use this RAM? Does anyone know? Max. ------------------------------ From: lilley@boulder.Colorado.EDU (John Lilley) University of Colorado, Boulder Subject: Re: Question Re: 386 memory Date: 6 Apr 89 22:52:17 GMT In article <22590@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> cc1@cs.ucla.edu (Max Kislik) writes: > >I have a 386 AT clone with a MICRONICS 20 Mhz board and 1 MB of RAM. >I tried to access the 384k of expanded? memory it is supposed to >have, but without any success. I have a Micronics 386/20Mhz board with 2MB RAM, and use most of the extra for expanded memory. You should have received a driver called "micemm2c.sys" with your board. This is a driver that runs in priveledged mode uses the 386 page-mapping facilites to "emulate" expanded memory. You need to put a line iyour config.sys file like: device=micemm2c.sys 0 (384) In order to use this memory. --john lilley ------------------------------ From: datagoer@neabbs.UUCP (HAN CUPERUS) NEABBS multi-line BBS +31-20-717666 (13x), Amsterdam, Holland Subject: Re: Question Re: 386 memory Date: 7 Apr 89 09:28:20 GMT I will think you should buy the program "386 MAX" from th company Qualitas Inc. , P.O.Box 386 , Cabin John , MD 20818 , fax: (301) 496-5810 for the price of $129.95 total. This program is placing ALL resident programs into the 1MB expanded memory , included the DOS or other operating system drivers , so you can endly use your expanded memory properly. Greetings Han Cuperus. ------------------------------ From: alanr@tekigm2.MEN.TEK.COM (Alan Rovner) Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or. Subject: Re: Question Re: 386 memory Date: 7 Apr 89 20:23:34 GMT In article <7967@boulder.Colorado.EDU>, lilley@boulder.Colorado.EDU (John Lilley) writes: > In article <22590@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> cc1@cs.ucla.edu (Max Kislik) writes: > > > >I have a 386 AT clone with a MICRONICS 20 Mhz board and 1 MB of RAM. > >I tried to access the 384k of expanded? memory it is supposed to > >have, but without any success. > I have the same mother board and do have access to the 384K using the program 386max. The reason you can't access it directly is something like this 384K of memory is located way up at the upper most part of the address space and is essentially invisible to most other drivers. 386max lets you use it as your choice of extended/expanded memory. Al Rovner, Tektronix Inc. Vancouver, Wash. ------------------------------ From: MAJ David McGuffey Subject: Transporting Hard Disks Date: Wed, 5 Apr 89 08:46 EDT I will be moving a 386 box with an ST-251 (40 meg) and an ST-4096 (80 meg) drives from the DC area to Ft. Leavenworth Kansas (no, not the prison, the Army school) in June. My concern is for the drives. What is the best way to transport hard drives (especially these two) over great distances. Should I move them myself in the car, or should I let the Army contracted packers and movers perform the task? Is it best to remove them from the system unit and place them back into the original foam and cardboard boxes or leave them in the systems unit? My first guess would be to leave them in the systems unit -- the greater the mass, the less effect road shock will have. A fully loaded 18 wheel moving van would also be less susceptible to road shock than a car, however rough handling by the packers is probably a far greater risk. These drives are both auto-parking on power-down, so my concerns may not be valid. If anyone has experience with this issue, please provide me some guidance (please, no opions, just experience). I'll summarize for the net. ------------------------------ From: alanj@ibmpcug.UUCP (Alan Jay) The IBM PC User Group, UK. Subject: Re: VM/386 Date: 8 Apr 89 16:02:28 GMT In article <4781@hubcap.UUCP> mmccann@hubcap.UUCP (Mike McCann) writes: >I need your comments on VM/386. >Any comments or suggestions welcome, Mike I have been playing with VM/386 for the past couple of weeks. It seems to work but the virtual machines are quite slow (in comparison the the 386 (DELL 20MHz) that it is running on). The only problem I have had is being able to read/write to the drives (DEFG) on my 150Mb drive. Hope this helps Regards Alan Jay - -- Alan Jay @ The IBM PC User Group, PO Box 360, Harrow HA1 4LQ ENGLAND Phone: +44 -1- 863 1191 Email: alanj@ibmpcug.CO.UK Path: ...!ukc!pyrltd!slxsys!ibmpcug!alanj Fax: +44 -1- 863 6095 ------------------------------ From: caromero@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (C. Antonio Romero) Princeton University, NJ Subject: Re: Why unix doesn't catch on Date: 7 Apr 89 20:59:53 GMT In article <253@jwt.UUCP> john@jwt.UUCP (John Temples) writes: [ I have deleted a lot of discussion of a non-386 topic. -wed ] But on the main issue of the discussion this came out of-- OS/2 vs. Xenix/Unix/whoeverix: We all hear horror stories about how resource-intensive OS/2 is, and how slow it gets when running several of anything, and how the 'one-at-a-time' compatibility box is a hack and not very useful. But what I wonder (and I _am_ a _very_ strong supporter of running Unix on any possible platform, so this isn't a snipe) is, how much memory/processor speed/etc. is required to run a similarly windowed environment on a 386 Unix box? I haven't heard any information about what it would take to create functionality for a single user comparable to OS/2's with PM. Is anyone out there running, for example, X on a 386 and several applications, with less memory than it takes to run OS/2 EE and a few applications? Some empirical data might help add some meaning to this discussion-- both the inevtiable rigged benchmarks and some subjective perceptions from people doing real work under each environment. Also, consider that the 386 version of OS/2 (due out, if I remember, sometime about a year from now, sure to be late, and probably buggy as hell when it arrives) will probably do a lot to close the gap on the DOS compatibility problem; and that the version of OS/2 out now might be better compared to some of the better 286 Unix solutions, since OS/2 is a 286 operating system. (I'll grant that the state of the art Unix has moved past the 286 by now, but this difference explains a lot of the weakness of OS/2, I think, when compared with the best Unix implementations.) If the competition between OS/2 and Unix were to be handled purely on its merits, I think: o Developers would rather have Unix as the target platform, because it is well understood at this point, and relatively mature on PC's, as well as relatively open-- one would no longer be enslaved to the MS/IBM axis, but could acquire one's 386 operating system from whichever vendor catered best to one's particular needs. o Unix development would also offer the advantage that a vendor could deliver the same software on, for example, 68000-family platforms like Suns with relatively little work for the port, while OS/2 being so tied to the 386, won't (probably) be made available for other processor families. o Users would benefit by using Unix for the same reason-- one is no longer married to MS/IBM for one's operating system, and could even move outside the Intel 80x86-line of processors if that best suited one's needs. o Users who wanted to connect to IBM mainframes might do better early on with the OS/2 offerings, but that gap would close fairly quickly as Unix OS developers quickly moved to cater to their customers' needs. I'm not dismissing OS/2 out of hand, since I think that with its parentage it will inevitably be a major factor in the market-- it won't just go away if we ignore it. As I understand it, it actually handles certain things (like shared libraries) better than most currently available Unixes (though as I understand things, this gap is closing too). I do think, though, that it's an inferior solution to some already-solved problems. I'm still mystified at the 'single-user' decision... while it's certainly more comfortable to have one user per machine, completely ruling out the possibility of running several seems shortsighted. Anyway, I'm babbling. Anyone with real experience with doing real work in either OS/2 or some 386 Unix please chime in now with some war stories... -Antonio Romero romero@confidence.princeton.edu ------------------------------ End of 80386 M/L ****************