From: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly)
Organization: The Man With Ten Cats
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 20:13:51 GMT
Reply-To: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly)

In article <9211220407.AA03937@PCS.CNU.EDU> "Coherent operating system" <COHERENT@indycms.bitnet> writes:
>
>	You still aren't getting it.  I *DONT* want to turn UNIX into DOS.  I
>guess I'm just saying DOS as a point of reference.  Users want a system like
>DOS where they load up their software and that is all.  And yet, some of them
>have highly customized DOS systems and they want that at the same time.  I
>want UNIX to kick DOS off the desktop and to do that it needs to change some.
>Nothing that would change it for those that don't want change.  I wouldn't
>give you a DOS functionality.  But for a computer neophyte who learned DOS
>by rote, it helps to let them go slowly.  I don't even really agree with that
>strategy but corporat America does.  Just look at Windows.  The users started
>by reluctantly sliding into Windows and now it will be much easier to take the
>step to NT than it would have been without the interim step.  If it will help
>UNIX get a firm grip on the market, I say do it.  If I was in charge, I'd
>just put the system in front of them and teach them how to use it.  But I'm
>not so I try to find ways to convince the skeptics to use UNIX.  It works
>sometimes and I don't see anything wrong with it.

One application at a time users don't need UNIX.  In a UNIX shop, most
UNIX systems can be set up for specific users so that logging in puts
them in VPIX or DOSMERGE, where they see a DOS environment, and can happily
run their DOS applications.  This has already existed for at least 5 years.
With an appropriate terminal like a Wyse 60, you can have multiple users
running DOS applications on a UNIX box.  VPIX runs DOS under a virtual 8086
session.

>	I know about foolish people too.  Once I visited a large Macintosh
>shop.  I was amazed to see people do their work and then just turn the thing
>off without doing a proper shutdown.  A Mac must save its system information to
>the root file system or it can corrupt the file system.  There was a sign about
>ten feet long that said "Perform a shutdown from Finder before turning off
>your Mac!!!!"

That's life.

>	I knew that WordPerfect was available for UNIX.  However, I hate it
>and its expensive.  Also, they have these annoying user limits.  I think
>I could get to like Ami Pro though.  Tried an older version with Windows
>once but didn't like it.  I've seen the newer versions and they are OK for
>a Windows word processor.  I haven't seen it advertised or anything.  Where
>have you seen it?  Right now, I use Island Write at the university but its
>only available (as far as I know) for a system running NeWS.  NeWS is a real
>drag on the system and I don't see the point.  Postscript is fine for printers
>but I rather not have it on my screen.  I'm trying to get a Sun Sparcstation
>IPC at school to boot with just X and olvwm but we don't have a copy of a
>plain vanilla X server.  I'd probably loose my mind trying to compile it
>from source, though we do have a 512meg drive that's empty...

Wordperfect is the biggest selling wordprocessor.  Check out the business
help wanted section in any newspaper.

If you really want to be enlightened, call an SCO dealer and get the third
party software catalog.

A 5 user version of Wordperfect for UNIX is cheaper per user than 1 copy
of Wordperfect for MSDOS.

-- 

Rick Kelly	rmk@rmkhome.UUCP	unixland!rmkhome!rmk	rmk@frog.UUCP