HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: pauls@css.itd.umich.edu (Paul Southworth)
Subject: Re: Anybody Out There?
Organization: University of Michigan ITD Consulting and Support Services
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 19:16:00 GMT

In article <1992Sep27.094748.24404@pegasus.com> richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) writes:
>>
>>Has anyone ever built a OS like 386BSD or Linux for 16 bit machines
>>that users could have access to the source?  Is there any hope of
>>getting something like gcc to work on these aging machines?
>>
>
>The pain and suffering is simply not worth it.  Especially since you
>can probably get a 386 motherboard for your pc for about $150.

While Richard is correct that it's probably not worth it, I would
suspect that you could probably find a copy of Minix from some
disgruntled user fairly cheap.  I would not to so far as to say
it is "like 386BSD or Linux" -- it is most definitely not.  But it
does include source.

(And it doesn't take much hard drive space)

Go ask about it on comp.os.minix if you're interested.

Paul Southworth                    |     ftp redspread.css.itd.umich.edu
Consulting and Support Services    |        Anonymous Political Archives
Information Technology Division    |                     100% 386BSD 0.1
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor  |  Coming soon: mirror of ftp.eff.org

  <Representing myself.  Everything I say is for educational use only.>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
From: kunkee@ferranti.com (randy kunkee)
Subject: How does ISA compare to EISA
Organization: Unix/Xenix Support Group
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 15:47:33 GMT

This probably should be a FAQ for both of these newsgroups.

I've gotten mixed messages about the usefulness of going with EISA.
Do you really get enough increase in performance to justify the cost?
I can see were a DOS user would claim there's not much advantage to
a EISA bus, but I only care about Unix performance.

Does anybody have any side-by-side comparisons of Unix running on
ISA vs. EISA?  Ideally, the only difference between the two systems
being compared would be the disk controller operating in 32-bit
bus-mastering mode vs. 16-bit mode.

-- 
Randy Kunkee
Ferranti International Controls Corporation
12808 W. Airport Blvd.  Sugar Land, TX 77478
UUCP: uupsi!ficc!kunkee       ph: (713) 274-5132
INTERNET: kunkee@ferranti.com
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit
From: pauls@css.itd.umich.edu (Paul Southworth)
Subject: Re: Coherrent Unix
Organization: University of Michigan ITD Consulting and Support Services
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 20:38:39 GMT

In article <1992Sep30.151811.1@email.bony.com> srico@email.bony.com writes:
>Does anyone know about Conherrent Unix for the 386, what about the new 
>release?
>
>Is it a full development environment?
>

You might have better luck taking questions about 32bit pc-clone Un*x
operating systems to comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit

There may also be a Coherent newsgroup (comp.os.coherent?) but I don't
know about that.

Paul Southworth                    |     ftp redspread.css.itd.umich.edu
Consulting and Support Services    |        Anonymous Political Archives
Information Technology Division    |                     100% 386BSD 0.1
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor  |  Coming soon: mirror of ftp.eff.org

  <Representing myself.  Everything I say is for educational use only.>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit
From: sdw@meaddata.com (Stephen Williams)
Subject: Re: Anybody Out There?
Organization: Mead Data Central, Dayton OH
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1992 14:26:48 GMT

pauls@icecreambar.css.itd.umich.edu (Paul Southworth) writes:
: Just checking.
: 
: Say, are there any free 286 un*x operating systems in existence?

I have an early copy of Microport Unix Sys V.2.

With development.


I'd be willing to part with it pretty cheap.

sdw
--
Stephen D. Williams  Local Internet Gateway Co.; SDW Systems 513 496-5223APager
LIG dev./sales       Internet: sdw@world.std.com CIS 76244.210@compuserve.com
OO R&D Source Dist.  By Horse: 10028 Village Tree Ct., Miamisburg, OH 45342
GNU Support          ICBM: 39 34N 85 15W I love it when a plan comes together
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit
Subject: Re: Coherrent Unix
From: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly)
Organization: The Man With Ten Cats
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 19:42:20 GMT
Reply-To: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly)

In article <1992Oct1.203839.6097@terminator.cc.umich.edu> pauls@css.itd.umich.edu (Paul Southworth) writes:
>In article <1992Sep30.151811.1@email.bony.com> srico@email.bony.com writes:
>>Does anyone know about Conherrent Unix for the 386, what about the new 
>>release?
>>
>>Is it a full development environment?
>>
>
>You might have better luck taking questions about 32bit pc-clone Un*x
>operating systems to comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
>
>There may also be a Coherent newsgroup (comp.os.coherent?) but I don't
>know about that.

Yes, the group is comp.os.coherent.

The company is the Mark Williams Company.  Info can be obtained from:

		sales@mwc.com

They sell two main products.

Coherent 3.2 for 286 class machines.  Binaries are limited to small model.
Development tools are included.

Coherent 4.0 for 386/486 class machines.  Binaries are 32 bit.  A set of
development tools are included.  

The price for each is $99 US.

-- 

Rick Kelly	rmk@rmkhome.UUCP	unixland!rmkhome!rmk	rmk@frog.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
From: larry@gator.rn.com (Larry Snyder)
Subject: Re: How does ISA compare to EISA
Organization: The Gator Conferencing System 219-289-3745 
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 19:14:19 GMT

ed@amg.com (Ed Whittemore) writes:

>transactions per sec. Also, if you're running Unix and want an
>Adaptec or BusTek adapter, only BusTek has a fast SCSI ISA adapter.

Only BusTek has a fast SCSI ISA adapter?  How much faster is
the BusTek over the 1542B?


-- 
Larry Snyder                                    internet: larry@gator.rn.com
keeper of the Gator                                  uucp: uunet!gator!larry
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit
From: tsw1@Isis.MsState.Edu (Thomas S Wilson)
Subject: Re: Anybody want uPort system V/AT?
Reply-To: wilson@ee.msstate.edu
Organization: I'm not very organized!
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 21:50:20 GMT

I also have a uport SYSV/AT sitting around that I could handle
getting rid of. it's version 2.4 and come with the software
development system which has quite a few languages and interpreters.

Rumor has it that there is an easy way to get around the two user
max problem. I don't know if it works or not, but a freind told
me that he just found another getty (agetty, I think) and recompilied
it and it let more than 2 uers on.
- correct me if I'm wrong.

Scott

-- 
         
 |||    Scott Wilson              |||    "Paradise is exactly like where    |||
 . .    wilson@ee.msstate.edu     . .     you are right now, only much,     . .
  _     "office": (601)325-2220    _      MUCH better     -Laurie Anderson   _


Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit
From: wilcox@erc.cat.syr.edu (Maynard Wilcox)
Subject: Re: Coherrent Unix
Organization: Electronic Resource Center, Syracuse
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 11:17:50 EDT


In partial answer to the question is Coherent a full development system the answer has to be almost. A discussion in comp.os.coherent was about importing PERL and the problem seemed to be the YACC that came with Coherent was severly crippled. However the importation of BISON proved to be easy into Coherent however it introduced anther host of problems that had not been overcome. Now Larry Wall has one hell of a setup program and if a popular utility like PERL hasn't been done yet I would reserve the probal








ity of Coherent as a full blown development system ok :-) Mark Williams may live or die by the Creavate Utilitor ( let the user beware)(sp)
From: wietse@wzv.win.tue.nl (Wietse Venema)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit
Subject: Re: Anybody want uPort system V/AT?
Date: 28 Sep 92 08:04:12 GMT
Organization: Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands

>Rumor has it that there is an easy way to get around the two user
>max problem. I don't know if it works or not, but a freind told
>me that he just found another getty (agetty, I think) and recompilied
>it and it let more than 2 uers on.
>- correct me if I'm wrong.

I wrote the program to solve a different problem, though. If you
seriously think of doing multi-user stuff you'll need lots of memory.
For example, 1 Meg for UNIX, and 1 Meg for each active user, or the
system will just swap itself to death.

	Wietse
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
From: gene@aee.aee.com (Gene Kochanowsky)
Subject: Re: How does ISA compare to EISA
Organization: Associated Electronic Engineers
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 14:27:16 GMT

kunkee@ferranti.com (randy kunkee) writes:

>This probably should be a FAQ for both of these newsgroups.

>I've gotten mixed messages about the usefulness of going with EISA.
>Do you really get enough increase in performance to justify the cost?
>I can see were a DOS user would claim there's not much advantage to
>a EISA bus, but I only care about Unix performance.

>Does anybody have any side-by-side comparisons of Unix running on
>ISA vs. EISA?  Ideally, the only difference between the two systems
>being compared would be the disk controller operating in 32-bit
>bus-mastering mode vs. 16-bit mode.

>-- 
>Randy Kunkee

Since UNIX lives off the disk, anything that can be done to increase
disk I/O performance will lead to a faster system. The simple solution
of splitting swap and / onto a separate disk from /usr,/home can increase
performance by as much as 25%. If you are planning to do database work
or NFS than the EISA bus is the way to go.

Gene Kochanowsky
gene@aee.com
-- 
Gene Kochanowsky                           | "And remember ....
Associated Electronic Engineers, Inc.      |       The better you look ... 
(904)893-6741 Voice, (904)893-2758 Fax     |       the more you will see."
gene@aee.com                               |               Miss Lidia
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit
From: kferg@vpnet.chi.il.us (Kevin Ferguson)
Subject: Re: Coherrent Unix
Organization: Vpnet Public Access
Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1992 03:30:13 GMT

In article <1992Sep30.151811.1@email.bony.com> srico@email.bony.com writes:
>Does anyone know about Conherrent Unix for the 386, what about the new 
>release?
>
>Is it a full development environment?
>
>

Yes it is.  Check out comp.os.coherent

ttfn 
kevin


Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit
From: richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk)
Subject: Re: Anybody Out There?
Organization: Pegasus,  Honolulu
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 92 09:47:48 GMT

>
>Has anyone ever built a OS like 386BSD or Linux for 16 bit machines
>that users could have access to the source?  Is there any hope of
>getting something like gcc to work on these aging machines?
>

The pain and suffering is simply not worth it.  Especially since you
can probably get a 386 motherboard for your pc for about $150.

-- 
Richard Foulk		richard@pegasus.com
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
From: yee@nimios.eng.mcmaster.ca (Paul Yee)
Subject: Re: How does ISA compare to EISA
Organization: Communications Research Laboratory, McMaster University
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 01:26:20 GMT

In article <KETIL.92Sep29132102@spurv.ii.uib.no> ketil@ii.uib.no writes:
>
>   I've gotten mixed messages about the usefulness of going with EISA.
>   Do you really get enough increase in performance to justify the cost?
>
>No. :-)
>
>   I can see were a DOS user would claim there's not much advantage to
>   a EISA bus, but I only care about Unix performance.
>
>An EISA bus is undoubtably faster (twice as fast, innit?) than ISA,
>but I'm not sure if it is worth what you pay for it.
>
>I think you'd be better off with a local bus system with a controller
>and videocard on the local bus, and an ISA bus for other stuff that
>doesn't need high transfer rates.
>
>Advantages:
>
>	* price is lower than EISA
>
>	* bus runs at processor speed
>
>Disadvantage:
>
>	* not really standard, you may have
>	  problems upgrading, esp. if the 
>	  manufacturer discontinues the computer.
>

Given that the VESA/Intel local bus specs are out, this is not a major
barrier (although that would still mean that there are *two* LB specs).
What is being overlooked is that one a 33MHz machine, say, LB should be
four times faster than the 33Mbyte/sec EISA type C burst transfers
(one 32bit word every clock at 33MHz) assuming that 
	1. LB can transfer one 32bit word/clk
	2. LB is clocked at full 33MHz
both of which are likely to be true (would someone care to either confirm
or deny these conjectures?) *BUT* no bus mastering is possible (as far as I
know). So the CPU is locked for the entirety of the LB transfer cycles, which
in a multi-threaded OS like OS/2 or UN*X adversely affects system response.
If the transfers are relatively short, this may not be an issue but for
longer sustained or multiple writes, the bus mastering EISA system ought to
provide superior *overall* processing throughput.

Also keep in mind that 1) EISA is ISA compatible (not every peripheral
is bus-bound, e.g., soundcards) [without loss of performance on the
EISA side] and 2) many different types of EISA cards are available,
e.g., Ethernet, not just the usual IDE/video controller cards available
for LB. Furthermore, EISA is a single standard with self-configuration
built-in.

Hope this clears up some misconceptions re: relative pros and cons of the
two...

>--
> = Ketil Malde                     In real life:  ketil@ii.uib.no =
> = Nuke the whales!                    Honk if you love unicorns! =


Regards,
Paul Yee
yee@nimios.eng.mcmaster.ca
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
From: ketil@spurv.ii.uib.no (Ketil M. Malde)
Subject: Re: How does ISA compare to EISA
Reply-To: ketil@ii.uib.no
Organization: student of computer science at the University of Bergen, Norway
Date: 29 Sep 92 13:21:02


   I've gotten mixed messages about the usefulness of going with EISA.
   Do you really get enough increase in performance to justify the cost?

No. :-)

   I can see were a DOS user would claim there's not much advantage to
   a EISA bus, but I only care about Unix performance.

An EISA bus is undoubtably faster (twice as fast, innit?) than ISA,
but I'm not sure if it is worth what you pay for it.

I think you'd be better off with a local bus system with a controller
and videocard on the local bus, and an ISA bus for other stuff that
doesn't need high transfer rates.

Advantages:

	* price is lower than EISA

	* bus runs at processor speed

Disadvantage:

	* not really standard, you may have
	  problems upgrading, esp. if the 
	  manufacturer discontinues the computer.

--
 = Ketil Malde                     In real life:  ketil@ii.uib.no =
 = Nuke the whales!                    Honk if you love unicorns! =
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit
From: flynn@Chaos.mcs.kent.edu (Mark Flynn)
Subject: Re: Coherrent Unix
Organization: Kent State University
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 19:51:32 GMT

 In article <1992Sep30.151811.1@email.bony.com> srico@email.bony.com writes:
>Does anyone know about Conherrent Unix for the 386, what about the new 
>release?

BTW, it's called Coherent, not Coherent Unix. Ifv they used the latter, they
would get sued.

Mark Flynn



Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit
From: tsw1@Isis.MsState.Edu (Thomas S Wilson)
Subject: Re: Unix on a 286
Reply-To: wilson@ee.msstate.edu
Organization: I'm not very organized!
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 22:49:03 GMT

In article <BvC4Hq.GoC@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz>, coxon@chem.canterbury.ac.nz (Mark Baker) writes:
|> 
|> Preferably something that doesn't take up too much disk space, as I have
|> alot of DOS apps, and definitely a dual boot system, coz I don't want to
|> biff DOS altogether.
|>  
|> Thanx in advance... Mark

Well, uport SYSV/AT asks you what you want to boot when it comes up.
you can have up to five different bootable partitions. So you could 
not only get DOS on there but CP/M too!!!!! One word of warning...
(actually it will take more than one word) The lowest track that uport lets
you use is 1 where DOS uses track 0. So if you try to put dos on when
you have uport on tracks 1 to 200 for example, you will have a tiny 
dos partition that takes up one whole track (0). ughh... it took me forever
to figure out why I could only fit COMMAND.COM and the system files on the 
primary dos partition. All you have to do is make sure that unix is 
placed in the back of the drive. I was using dos 3.3, though.


-- 
         
 |||    Scott Wilson              |||    "Paradise is exactly like where    |||
 . .    wilson@ee.msstate.edu     . .     you are right now, only much,     . .
  _     "office": (601)325-2220    _      MUCH better     -Laurie Anderson   _


Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit
From: tsw1@Isis.MsState.Edu (Thomas S Wilson)
Subject: Re: SunSoft/Interactive Unix for Intel Developer Kit
Reply-To: wilson@ee.msstate.edu
Organization: I'm not very organized!
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 03:36:08 GMT

Solaris does not work for 16 bit mag\chines, though, does it?
My roomate, being a sysadmin got a demo of it, and it says
something to that effect...
 
-- 
         
 |||    Scott Wilson              |||    "Paradise is exactly like where    |||
 . .    wilson@ee.msstate.edu     . .     you are right now, only much,     . .
  _     "office": (601)325-2220    _      MUCH better     -Laurie Anderson   _
From: dave@frackit.UUCP (Dave Ratcliffe)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit
Subject: Re: Anybody want uPort system V/AT?
Summary: Swap,swap,swap,swap,swap(kill the hard drive)swap,swap,swap,swap
Date: 3 Oct 92 19:38:56 GMT
Organization: Data Factory Services, Harrisburg, Pa.

In article <3920@wzv.win.tue.nl>, wietse@wzv.win.tue.nl (Wietse Venema) writes:
> >Rumor has it that there is an easy way to get around the two user
> >max problem. I don't know if it works or not, but a freind told
> >me that he just found another getty (agetty, I think) and recompilied
> >it and it let more than 2 uers on.
> >- correct me if I'm wrong.
> 
> I wrote the program to solve a different problem, though. If you
> seriously think of doing multi-user stuff you'll need lots of memory.
> For example, 1 Meg for UNIX, and 1 Meg for each active user, or the
> system will just swap itself to death.

I tried to run uPort SYSV/AT for a short time on a Bleeding Edge 286.
Notwithstanding the fact that the CPU clock speed was strictly from
hell, logging in with more than 2 users (this was an unlimited
installation) guaranteed the longest wait for EVERYTHING while the drive
busily swapped its buns off. 

login: dave

[ go get lunch, do a game of tennis, come back in as it prints:

Password: felgercarb

[ go get dinner, read a book, come back in and .. ] :)

Adding RAM helped. Sortof. 

Ahhhhhhhhhhh..... the good old days.
-- 
 ...uunet!wa3wbu!frackit!dave -or-                       |  Dave Ratcliffe  |
 frackit!dave@uunet.UU.NET -or- dave@frackit.uucp -or-   |  Sys. <*> Admin. |
 vogon1!compnect!frackit!dave@psuvax1.psu.edu            | Harrisburg,  Pa. |
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
From: pss1@kepler.unh.edu (Paul S Secinaro)
Subject: Re: How does ISA compare to EISA
Organization: University of New Hampshire  -  Durham, NH
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 12:27:57 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.004253.14049@mcshub.dcss.mcmaster.ca> yee@nimios.eng.mcmaster.ca (Paul Yee) writes:

>	1. LB can transfer one 32bit word/clk
>	2. LB is clocked at full 33MHz
>both of which are likely to be true (would someone care to either confirm
>or deny these conjectures?) *BUT* no bus mastering is possible (as far as I
>know). So the CPU is locked for the entirety of the LB transfer cycles, which
>in a multi-threaded OS like OS/2 or UN*X adversely affects system response.

I think the VESA local bus does support bus mastering.  An overview of
VL-bus specs was posted by a Zeos employee on comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
in the past few days.  Here are the relevant sections:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

		  Summary of the VESA Local BUS Specification


[stuff deleted]

Maximum Number of VL-Bus Masters.

    A maximum of three bus masters are supported on the VL-Bus. The
maximum number of bus masters on the system I/O bus is specified by
that system I/O bus.

[deleted]

DMA

Any VL-Bus target may be a DMA target to the motherboard DMA or system
I/O bus master. DMA slaves are not supported on the VL-Bus. For a
VL-Bus device to initiate a DMA transfer, it must contain full bus
master capibilities.

BUS Masters

Bus mastering on both the VL-Bus or system I/O bus are fully
supported. An active bus master and the target can both sit on the
VL-Bus and transfer to each other.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To me, it looks like the VL-bus not only supports bus-mastering, but
REQUIRES it for any device that wants to initiate DMA transfers.

If anyone wants the full text of the document I've included, check
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.

Paul

-- 
Paul Secinaro
pss1@kepler.unh.edu
Synthetic Vision and Pattern Analysis Laboratory
UNH Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit
From: wcalderw@nmsu.EDU (CALDERWOOD)
Subject: Re: Anybody Out There?
Organization: New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM
	<1992Sep25.174213.15073@unlv.edu>
	<1992Sep25.183220.3886@news.iastate.edu>
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 22:18:35 GMT

Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit
From: mds@iastate.edu (Mark D. Smucker)
Subject: Re: Anybody Out There?
Organization: Iowa State University of Censorship and Repression
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1992 18:32:20 GMT

>In article <1992Sep25.174213.15073@unlv.edu> danield@unlv.edu (Daniel Davidson) writes:
>>
>>It's not quite free but you might take a look at Minix.  It will run
>>on anyhting form an 8088 up.  There are also kernel patches that take
>>advantage of the 286.
>>
>
>I've got an 8088 ( sigh ) and have always wanted to be able turn it
>into some sort of unix box.  About what price does Minix go for, and
>where can one get it?
>
>Has anyone ever built a OS like 386BSD or Linux for 16 bit machines
>that users could have access to the source?  Is there any hope of
>getting something like gcc to work on these aging machines?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Mark
>
>
>

You can find Minix at most Walden Software Stores for around $100.00.
We use it here at NMSU for our OS class on 4Mhz 8088's it's verry slow
to compile on (around a half hour on the average compile for kernal)
but its great to learn about how a multiprogram system works.

We maybe looking at the possibility of buying some 386's and installing
Linux later on. But for now Minux is all we have in the way of source code.

Bill Calderwood                All comments are my own and do not reflect the
                               opinions of the University nor my professors
                               nor my employers.

wcalderw@nmsu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit
From: srico@email.bony.com
Subject: Coherrent Unix
Organization: ***
Date: 30 Sep 92 15:18:11 EDT

Does anyone know about Conherrent Unix for the 386, what about the new 
release?

Is it a full development environment?


Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit
From: greg@pomona.claremont.edu (Tigger)
Subject: SunSoft/Interactive Unix for Intel Developer Kit
Organization: Pomona College
Date: 28 Sep 92 14:56:03 PDT

A friend of mine (who cannot post due to corporate policy) has three
copies of SunSoft/Interactive Unix for Intel Developer's Kit for sale.
They are still shrink wrapped with full warranty, and are eligible for
the Solaris for Intel upgrade when it becomes available.  I have posted
details to misc.forsale.computers with the same subject line as this
post, or you can e-mail me for a copy.

Greg Orman
greg@pomona.claremont.edu
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.16bit