The 640 MEG Shareware Studio 2/The 640 Meg Shareware Studio CD-ROM Volume II (Data Express)(1993).ISO/diag/unix0892.zip/PCUNIX.DOC

Internet Message Format | 1992-08-12 | 119KB

From: [e-mail] (Eric S. Raymond)
Subject: PC-clone UNIX Software Buyer's Guide
Summary: A buyer's guide to UNIX versions for PC-clone hardware
Date: 12 Aug 92 17:20:10 GMT
Followup-To: comp.unix.sysv386

Archive-name: pc-unix/software
Last-update: Wed Aug 12 13:15:22 1992
Version: 6.0

You say you want cutting-edge hacking tools without having to mortgage
the wife'n'kids?  You say arrogant workstation vendors are getting you
down?  You say you crave fast UNIX on cheap hardware, but you don't
know how to go about getting it?  Well, pull up a chair and take the
load off yer feet, bunky, because...

This is v6.0 of the PC-clone UNIX Software Buyer's Guide posting
current to Aug 10th 1992.


What's new in this issue:
   * New (higher) price for Consensys.
   * Speedup figures on Adaptec 1740 native mode vs. 1542 emulation.
   * Problems with the Archive XL tape drive.
   * Mixed new reports on UHC support.
   * 386BSD 0.1 is out.
   * Details on problems from mixing 8 and 16-bit cards.
   * Dell 2.2 info.
   * Info on another lookalike: QNX.

Gentle Reader: if you end up buying something based on information
from this Guide, please do yourself and the net a favor; make a point
of telling the vendor "Eric's FAQ sent me" or some equivalent.  The
idea isn't to hype me personally, I've already got all the notoriety I
need from doing things like _The_New_Hacker's_Dictionary_ --- but if
we can show vendors that the Guide influences a lot of purchasing
decisions, I can be a more powerful advocate for the net's interests,
and for you.

0. CONTENTS

  I.  INTRODUCTION.  What this posting is.  How to help improve it.
Summary of the 386/486 UNIX market, including 6 SVr4 vendors and 2 BSD
ports.  What's new in this issue.

  II.  GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.  A brief discussion of general hardware
requirements and compatibility considerations in the base SVR4 code
from UNIX Systems Laboratories (referred to below as the USL code).
None of this automatically applies to SCO or the two BSD-like
versions, which break out the corresponding information into their
separate vendor reports.

  III. FEATURE COMPARISON. A feature table which gives basic price &
feature info and summarizes differences between the versions.

  IV. VENDOR REPORTS.  Detailed descriptions of the different versions
and vendors, including information collected from the net on bugs,
supported and unsupported hardware and the like.

  V. HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY TABLES.  A set of tables summarizes vendor
claims and user reports on hardware compatibility.

  VI. FREE ADVICE TO VENDORS.  Your humble editor's soapbox.  An open
letter to the UNIX vendors designed to get them all hustling to
improve their products and services as fast as possible.

  VII. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND ENVOI.  Credit where credit is due.  Some
praises and pans.  What comes next....

Note: versions 1.0 through 4.0 of this posting had a different archive
name (386-buyers-faq) and included the following now separate FAQs as
sections.

  pc-unix/hardware -- (formerly HOT TIPS FOR HARDWARE BUYERS) Useful
general tips for anybody buying clone hardware for a UNIX system.
Overview of the market.  Technical points.  When, where, and how to
buy.

  usl-bugs -- (formerly KNOWN BUGS IN THE USL CODE).  A discussion of
bugs known or believed to be generic to the USL code, with indications
as to which porting houses have fixed them.  None of this applies to
the two BSD-based versions.

Readers may also find material of interest in Dick Dunn's general 386
UNIX FAQ list, posted monthly to comp.unix.sysv386 and news.answers.


I. INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this posting is to pool public knowledge and USENET
feedback about all leading-edge versions of UNIX for commodity 386 and
486 hardware.  It also includes extensive information on how to buy
cheap clone hardware to support your UNIX.

This document is maintained and periodically updated as a service to
the net by Eric S.  Raymond <[e-mail]>, who began it for
the very best self-interested reason that he was in the market and
didn't believe in plonking down several grand without doing his
homework first (no, I don't get paid for this, though I have had a
bunch of free software and hardware dumped on me as a result of it!).
Corrections, updates, and all pertinent information are welcomed at
that address.

This posting is periodically broadcast to the USENET group
comp.unix.sysv386 and to a list of vendor addresses.  If you are a
vendor representative, please check the feature chart and vendor
report to make sure the information on your company is current and
correct.  If it is not, please email me a correction ASAP.  If you are
a knowledgeable user of any of these products, please send me a precis
of your experiences for the improvement of the feedback sections.

At time of writing, here are the products in this category:

Consensys UNIX Version 1.3                      abbreviated as "Cons" below
Dell UNIX Issue 2.2                             abbreviated as "Dell" below
ESIX System V Release 4.0.4                     abbreviated as "Esix" below
Micro Station Technology SVr4 UNIX              abbreviated as "MST" below
Microport System V Release 4.0 version 4        abbreviated as "uPort" below
UHC Version 3.6                                 abbreviated as "UHC" below

SCO Open DeskTop 1.1                            abbreviated as "ODT" below

BSD/386 (0.3 beta)                              abbreviated as "BSDI" below
Mach386                                         abbreviated as "Mach" below

The first six of these are ports of USL's System V Release 4.  Until
last year there was a seventh, by Interactive Systems Corporation.
That product was canned after half of ISC was bought by SunSoft,
evidently to clear the decks for Solaris 2.0 (a SunOS port for the 386
to be released late in 1992).  The only Interactive UNIX one can buy
at present is an SVr3.2 port which I consider uninteresting because
it's no longer cutting-edge; I have ignored it.

Earlier issues ignored SCO because (a) 3.2 isn't leading-edge any more
and (b) their `Version 4' is a 3.2 sailing under false colors.  Can
you say deceptive advertising?  Can you say bait-and-switch?  Can you
say total marketroid-puke?  However, the clamor from netters wanting
it included was deafening.  The day SCO landed an unsolicited free
copy of ODT on my doorstep I gave in.  I don't expect to actually use
it, but I summarize the relevant facts along with everything else
below.  Note that ODT is their full system with networking and X
windows; what they call SCO UNIX is missing most of those trimmings.

BSD/386 is *not* based on USL code, but on the CSRG NET2 distribution
tape.  Complete sources are included with every system shipped!
Mach386 is basically BSD tools with the monolithic Mach 2.5 kernel and
does entail a USL license; it's based on the Tahoe BSD distribution.
For a few extra bucks, you can get Mach 3.0 (a true microkernel) with
*source*!.

LynxOS is a 386 UNIX specialized for real-time work, available from
Lynx Real-Time Systems Inc. of Los Gatos, California.  It includes
TCP/IP, NFS, X, etc.  Most of the development tools are GNU.  The
kernel is pre-emptable and supports threads and dynamically-loased
device drivers.

Siemens AG plans to offer a SVr4 port optimized for real-time work in
June 1992.  This product will be called SORIX.

AT&T's own 386 UNIX offering is not covered here because it is
available and supported for AT&T hardware only.

All the vendors listed offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, but
they'll be sticky about it except where there's an insuperable
hardware compatibility problem or you trip over a serious bug.  One
(UHC) charges a 25% restocking fee on returns.  BSDI offers a 60-day
guarantee and says: "If a customer is dissatisfied with the product,
BSDI unconditionally refunds the purchase price."  Dell says "30 day
money-back guarantee, no questions asked".

There are some freeware alternative UNIXes available for the 386/486.
None of these are yet complete and mature hacking environments, but
they show promise (and require much less in minimum hardware to run).
They are:

386BSD:
   Under development by Bill & Lynne Jolitz & friends (this is the
same 386BSD project described in Dr. Dobbs' Journal some time back).
This OS is based on the NET/2 tape from Berkeley and strongly
resembles the commercial BSD/386 release described below, and like it
is distributed with full source.  The aim is to produce a full
POSIX-compliant freeware BSD UNIX.  Version 0.1 is now out, including
FP emulation, SCSI support, coexistence with DOS, and many more new
features.  There's no passwording yet, but the system is otherwise
fairly complete; I have seen it run.  There's a lot of traffic in
comp.unix.bsd about this project.

Linux:
   This is a POSIX-emulating UNIX lookalike, being written from
scratch and currently in beta.  At the moment, it's less complete than
386BSD because it doesn't leverage as much pre-existing code, but the
kernel and development tools are up and usable.  No TCP/IP yet, but
they have local sockets for X.  Linux is changing so fast that more
description would probably be more misleading than enlightening.
There's an active linux group on USENET, comp.os.linux, and a (now
less active) linux-activists mailing list; to subscribe, mail to
"[e-mail]".  Up-to-the minute info is
also available by fingering [e-mail].

Hurd:
   This is the long-awaited and semi-mythical GNU kernel.  It's being
worked on by the Free Software Foundation (the people who brought you
emacs, gcc, gdb and the rest of the GNU tool suite) but it's not ready
for prime time yet.  It's said to be a set of processes layered over a
Mach 3.0 kernel.  The 386BSD and Linux developments both lean heavily
on GNU tools.

There is one other not-quite-freeware (cheapware?) product that
deserves a mention:

Minix:
   This is a roughly V7-compatible UNIX clone for Intel boxes, sold
with source by Prentice-Hall for $169 (there's an associated book for
a few bucks more).  It's really designed to run in 16-bit mode on 8086
and 286 machines, though the UK's MINIX center offers a 32-bit kernel.
UUCP and netnews clones are available as freeware but not supplied
with the base system.  A large international community is involved in
improving Minix; see comp.os.minix on USENET for details.

These freeware and "cheapware" products exert valuable pressure on the
commercial vendors.  Someday, they may even force AT&T to unlock
source to stay competitive...

Finally, there is a class of commercial UNIX clones that claim to
emulate UNIX or improve on it without being derived from AT&T source.
The leading products of this kind for 80x86 machines seem to be
Coherent and QNX.  The following information about these has been
supplied by various USENETters:

   COHERENT is a small-kernel UNIX-compatible multi-user,
multi-tasking development O/S for $99.95 that uses less than 14Mb of
disk space, runs on most 286-386-486 CPU systems, has a 64k limit C
compiler and over 230 UNIX commands including text processing, program
development, administrative and maintenance functions.  It resides on
a partition separate from DOS and can access the DOS file system with
the DOS command. It has no network or Xwindows support, but cnews and
rn have been ported and it has its own newsgroup, comp.os.coherent.
It is fully documented with both a comprehensive 1200 page manual and
an on-line manual. Mark Williams Company provides excellent support
including a UUCP access BBS and has just announced Release 4.0, the
386 version of COHERENT.

  QNX is a POSIX-complient microkernel OS with real-time capability,
targeted to mission critical, performance sensitive applications like
factory automation, process control, financial transaction processing,
and instrumentation.  They claim an installed base of over 200K sites
worldwide.  The microkernel is only 7K and implements a
message-passing model; other pieces can loaded in at runtime,
supporting anything from a small real-time eexcutive up to a full
multi-user time-sharing system (including transparent DOS emulation).
QNX networking supports standard protocol stacks, but internally uses
very fast lightweight protocols; QNX machines on a network can be
treated for most purposes as a single large multiprocessor, and the OS
itself can be distributed across multiple nodes.  Here is contact
informstion for the vendor:

Quantum Software Systems                      Quantum Software Systems
175 Terrence Matthews Cr.                     Westendstr.19 6000 Frankfurt
Kanata, Ontario K2M 1W8                       am main 1
Canada                                        Germany
voice:  [phone] x111 (voice)           voice: 49 69 97546156
fax:    [phone]      (fax)             fax:   [phone]
usenet: [e-mail]

QNX support is offered via voice and FAX hotline and a BBS.  There is
also a newsletter and an annual international users' conference.

II. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

To run any of these systems, you need at least the following: 4 MB of
RAM and 80MB of hard disk (SCO says 8MB minimum for ODT 2.0; Dell 2.1
also requires 8 MB minimum).  However, this is an absolute minimum;
you'll want at least 8 MB of RAM for reasonable performance.  And
depending on options installed, the OS will eat from 40 to 120 meg of
the disk, so you'll want at least 200 meg for real work.  To run X
you'll need a VGA monitor and card, and 12-16MB RAM would be a good
idea.

Installation from these systems requires that you boot from a
hi-density floppy (either 3.5" or 5.25").  Most vendors offer the bulk
of the system on a QIC 1/4-inch tape; otherwise you may be stuck with
loading over 60 diskettes!  In general, if the initial boot gets far
enough to display a request for the first disk or tape load, you're in
good shape.

USL SVr4 conforms to the following software standards: ANSI
X3.159-1989 C, POSIX 1003.1, SVID 3rd edition, FIPS 151-1, XPG3, and
System V ABI.  4.0.4 ports conform to the iBCS-2 binary standard.  The
SVr4 C compiler (C Issue 5) includes some non-ANSI extensions
(however, note that as of mid-1992, no SVr4 ports other than AT&T's
have been formally POSIX-certified).  SCO meets all these except
System V ABI and SVID 3rd edition; however, it does conform to SVID
2nd edition.

All SVr4 versions include support for BSD-style file systems with
255-character segment names and fragment allocation.  In general this
is a Good Thing, but some SVr3.2 and XENIX binaries can be confused by
the different size of the inode index.  You need to run these on an
AT&T-style file system.  SCO UNIX 3.2v4 (thus, ODT 2.0 but not 1.1)
has an `EAFS' file system which adds symlinks and long filenames.  Old
SCO binaries can be confused by long filenames.

All SVr4 versions include the UNIX manual pages on-line.  Dell stocks
Prentice-Hall's SVr4 books and will sell them to you with your system
(in lieu of printed manuals) at extra cost.  You can order them direct
from Prentice-Hall at (201)-767-5937.  Warning: they ain't cheap!
Buying the whole 13 volumes will cost you a couple hundred bucks.
Esix, Microport and UHC have their own manual sets derived from the
same AT&T source tapes as the Prentice-Hall set; Esix charges extra
for them, but Microport and UHC both include them with their systems.

SVr4 includes hooks for a DOS bridge that allows you to run DOS
applications under UNIX (the two products that actually do this are
DOS Merge and VP/ix).  Most vendors do not include either of these
with the base system, however.

All these systems support up to 1024x768 by 256 color super-VGA under
X.  The 640x480 by 16 colors of standard VGA is no problem; everybody
supports that compatibly.  However, X servers older than the Roell or
X11R5 version (that is, MIT X11R4 or anything previous) are hard to
configure for the clock timings of your controller and monitor scan
frequency unless you have one of the standard combinations USL
supports or your vendor has configured for it.

There are a couple of known hardware compatibility problems the USL
code doesn't yet address.  See the KNOWN BUGS section near the end of
this document.


III. FEATURE COMPARISON

To interpret the table below, bear in mind the following things:

   All these products except BSDI/386, Mach386 and SCO ODT are based
on the SVr4 kernel from UNIX Systems Laboratories (USL), an AT&T
spinoff.  Thus they share over 90% of their code and features.
Product differentiation is done primarily through support policy,
bug-fix quality and add-on software.

   The `USL support?' column refers to the fact that USL support is a
separate charge from the source license.  With the former, a porting
house gets access to AT&T's own OS support people and their bug fix
database, and the porting house's bug fixes can get folded back into
the USL code.

   These systems come either in a "crippled" version that supports at
most two simultaneous users, or an unlimited version.  Generally the
vendors do allow you to upgrade your license via a patch disk if your
requirements, but this invariably costs slightly more than the base
price difference between 2-user and unlimited systems.

   The "run-time" system in the price tables below is a minimum
installation, just enough to run binaries.  The "complete" system
includes every software option offered by the vendor; it does *not*
bundle in the cost of the Prentice-Hall docs offered by some vendors
as an option.  You may well get away with less, especially if you're
willing to do your own X installation.

   The `Upgrade plan' section refers only to upgrades from previous
versions of the same vendor's software.

   The numbers under support-with-purchase are days counted from date
of shipment.  The intent is to help you get initially up and running.

   The engineer counts below are as supplied by vendors; .5 of an
engineer means someone is officially working half-time.  The `Uses
USENET' column is `yes' if there is allegedly at least one person in
the engineering department who reads USENET technical groups regularly
and is authorized to respond to USENET postings reporting problems.

   A dash `-' means the given feature or configuration is not offered.
A `yes' means it is currently offered; `soon' means the vendor has
represented that it will be offered in the near future.  A `no' means
it's not offered, but there's some related information in the attached
footnote.


Vendor        SCO     Cons   Dell   Esix   MST    uPort  UHC    BSDI   Mach386

Base version: 3.2.2   4.0.3  4.0.4  4.0.4  4.0.3  4.0.4  4.0.3  BSD    Mach
USL support?  ??      ??     y      y      n      y      ??(a)  n      n

System price:
  Run-time
   2-user      595   -      -        384    249    500    695  -      -
   Unlimited  1295   -      -        784    449  1,000  1,090  -      -
  Complete
   2-user     1395   995    995(b)     -    799  3,000  1,990  -      995
   Unlimited  2595   1195  1295(b) 1,607    999  3,500  2,385  995    (c)

Printed docs? y(k)    -     y(d)   y(d)   -      y(e)   y      -      -

Upgrade plan?
 From SVr3.2  ??     -      y      y      -      y      -      -      -
 Future SVr4s ??     -      (g)    (f)    -      (g)    -      -      -

Support
 W/purchase:  30     (h)    90     (i)    30     30     30     60     30
 800 number?  y      -      y      -      -      -      -      -      -
 By contract  y      n(j)   y      n(i)   y      y      y      y      y
 Support BBS? y      y      -      y      -      y      soon   -      y
 FTP server?  y      -      y      soon   -      -      -      -      y
 Read USENET? y      ??     y      y      -      y      n(l)   y      y

# Engineers:
 Support:     60+    1      5      2      2      4      2      1.5    1
 Development: 55+    ??(m)  10     ~20    3      6      27     5.5    5

Distribution media:
 3.5" 1.44MB  y      y(n)   -      y      y      y      y      -      y
 5.25" 1.2MB  y      y(n)   -      y      y      y      y      -      y
 60MB ctape   y      y      -      y      y      y      y      -      -
 125MB ctape  -      -      -      -      y      -      y      -      -
 150MB ctape  -      -      -      -      y      y      y      y      -
 250MB ctape  -      -      y      -      -      -      -      -      -
 2GB DAT      -      -      y      -      -      -      -      -      -
 Via network? -      -      y      -      -      -      -      -      -

X options:
 X11/NeWS R3  -      -      -      y      -      -      y      -      -
 MIT X11R4    y(o)   -      y      -      -      -      -      -      y
 AT&T Xwin 3  -      -      -      -      y      -      -      -      -
 AT&T Xwin 4  -      -      -      y      -      y      -      -      -
 Roell X386   -      -      -      -      y      -      y      -      -
 X11R5        -      y      y      -      -      -      -      y      soon
 Open Look    -      -      4i     1.0    2.0    4i     4i     -      -
 Motif       1.1     1.1    1.1.4  1.1.0  1.1.2  1.1.3  1.1.3  -      soon
 X.desktop   2.0     -      -      -      -      3.0    2.0    -      -

Also included:
 DOS bridge?  y      -      y      -      -      soon   -      soon   -
 SLIP?        y      -      y      y      -      y      soon   y      y(p)
 PPP?        (q)     ??     -      n(r)   -      -      soon   soon   n

(a) UHC had a support contract at one time but may have let it lapse. I
    expect to have better information on this soon.
(b) This price is for customer-installed UNIX.  If it's factory-installed on
    Dell hardware, it's $500 less.
(c) No unlimited licenses have been sold yet.  Talk to Mt. Xinu about one.
(d) Extra-cost option.
(e) With complete system only.
(f) Small media charge.  Note: if you upgrade from a 2-user to multi-user
    ESIX, you pay full price.
(g) Free with support contract, charge otherwise (charge ~$500).
(h) 90 days or until product is installed successfully.
(i) Unlimited free phone support.
(j) Charges by the half-hour phone call.
(k) SCO omits many of the paper docs from its "personal" (2-user) system.
(l) UHC says they used to be net-active and want to be again when they can
    afford the man-hours.
(m) Consensys explicitly refuses to release this information.
(n) There's an $80 media charge for the diskettes equivalent to the normal
    60MB distribution tape.
(o) SCO's own X11R4 implementation.
(p) At present, you must buy Mach386 Autosupport to get SLIP.
(q) The SCO networking bundle includes PPP, as will ODT 2.0.
(r) Mark Boucher <[e-mail]> has written a PPP driver for ESIX

The SCO information is included by popular demand for comparison
purposes.  In the price figures, the `runtime' system is SCO UNIX
3.24; the `complete' system is ODT with development tools.

In general, the SVr4 market breaks into two tiers.  The bottom tier is
Consensys and MST; low-ball outfits selling stock USL with minimal
support for real cheap.  The top tier is Dell, Esix, Microport and
UHC; these guys are selling support and significant enhancements and
charge varying premiums for it.  Your first, most basic buying
decision has to be which tier best serves your needs.

One further note: it *is* possible to buy these systems at less than
the list the vendor charges!  I found some really substantial
discounts in one mail-order catalog ("The Programmer's Shop"; call
1-(800)-426-8006 to get on their mailing list, but be prepared to wade
through a lot of DOS cruft).


IV. VENDOR REPORTS
    Vendor reports start here.  Each one is led by a form feed.

NAME:
   SCO Open DeskTop

VENDOR:
   The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
   400 Encinal Street
   PO Box 1900
   Santa Cruz,CA 95061-1900
   1-(800)-SCO-UNIX (sales)
   1-(800)-347-4381 (customer service and tech support)
   [e-mail]         --- product info by email, sales requests
   [e-mail]        --- sales dept, direct
   [e-mail]      --- support requests (support contract customers only)

SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
   SCO's package and option structure is (excessively) complicated.
At the moment the `bundles' to keep track of are:

  SCO UNIX System V/386 Release 3.2 Version 4.0

  SCO UNIX networking bundle, consisting of:
    SCO UNIX System V/386 Release 3.2 Version 4.0
    SCO TCP/IP 1.2.0
    SCO NFS 1.2.0

  SCO Open Desktop 1.1, consisting of:
    SCO UNIX System V/386 Release 3.2 Version 2.0
    SCO TCP/IP 1.1.3
    SCO NFS 1.1.1
    LAN Manager Client, PC-NFS daemon, PC-Interface server
    X (currently X11R4 server/clients, Motif 1.1.2, X.desktop 2.0)
    Ingres
    DOS Merge (2.0)

  SCO Open Desktop 2.0, starts shipping early July, consisting of:
    SCO UNIX System V/386 Release 3.2 Version 4.0
    SCO TCP/IP 1.2.0
    SCO NFS 1.2.0
    LAN Manager Client, PC-NFS daemon, PC-Interface server
    X (X11R4 server/clients, Motif 1.1.4, X.desktop 3.0)
    DOS Merge (2.2?)

Note that Ingres (the database) is being *removed* from the ODT
bundle.  There is a special Ingres price for ODT customers, and Ingres
has committed to offering a 50% discount till the end of '92.

ADD-ONS:
   There are piles of them.  I was most impressed by the docs for the
CodeView debugger and MASM assembler, but the presence of ISAM
support, SQL support, and what looks like a commercially-viable
database tool would probably be more significant to the ordinary
commercial user.

   SCO bundles with X also include 18 clients (what in marketingese
are called ``personal productivity and groupware accessories and
controls'') which include: mail, help, edit, paint, term, print,
login, clock, color, session, mouse, lock, and admin (official names
all prepended with "SCO") as well as DOS, load, and calculator
clients.

SUPPORT:
   You get 30 days of free phone support with purchase.
   ODT support is $895 per year.
   SCO has BBS coverage and a local support operation in the UK; BBS
coverage only Germany.  Local support is, in theory, to be provided by
distributors.

FUTURE PLANS:
   ODT 2.0 will include X.desktop 3.0.

HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
   See the appendix for details.  SCO provides a Hardware Compatibility
Guide with its software.

COMMENTS:
   The docs are impressive; you could get a hernia trying to lift them all.

TECHNICAL NOTES:
   There's an `MPX' kernel available from SCO that supports
multiprocessing.

   Though this is a 3.2 kernel, SCO has added support for SVr4-like
symbolic links and long filenames to Version 4.

   SCO has a standard driver announcement protocol which allows the
utility hwconfig(C) to print out detailed hardware configuration info
by inspecting a file generated at boot time.  Note: this report
doesn't catch what's actually *attached* (unlike, say, Dell's
showcfg), just what's configured.

    SCO's cross-development and DOS emulation support is unusually
rich.  It includes lots of system utilities for I/O with a DOS
filesystem, as well as cross-development libraries and tools in the
Development System.  Microsoft Windows 3.0 and Windows 3.0
applications are supported (in real mode), and future releases will
support Windows 3.1 and associated applications.  Graphical MS-DOS
applications are supported in CGA graphics mode within an X window,
and VGA graphics are supported in full-screen mode.

KNOWN BUGS
     SCO tar(1) chokes horribly on long filenames and symbolic links.

WHAT THE USERS SAY:
   XENIX is the UNIX port hackers love to hate, but at 70% of the
market SCO must be doing something right.  In general, SCO UNIX and
XENIX are reputed to be a very polished and stable systems.
Unfortunately, they also drive developers crazy because of numerous
tiny and undocumented divergences between the SCO way and the
USL-based releases.

REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
   The SCO support system is heavily bureaucratized and prone to
thrash when processing questions of unusual depth or scope.  While
probably adequate for the random business luser, hackers are likely to
find the contortions required to get to a master-level developer very
frustrating.

   SCO in general has the fairly serious case of corporatitis you'd
predict from their relatively large size --- no-comment policies and
compartmentalization out the wazoo.

   On the other hand, they sent me an unsolicited free copy, and I got
huge amounts of useful technical and hardware-compatibility info
"unofficially" from SCOer Bela Lubkin <[e-mail]>.  Gee.  Maybe I
should flame vendors more often... :-)


NAME:
   Consensys UNIX Version 1.3

VENDOR:
   Consensys
   1301 Pat Booker Road
   Universal City, TX 78148
   (800)-387-8951
   {dmentor,dciem}!askov!root

SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
   None.

ADD-ONS:
   Basically this is a stock USL system with the stock USL bugs,
except the installation sequence has been improved considerably.  Good
tools for configuration management and system administration on a
network of Consensys machines are included.

SUPPORT:
   You get free phone support until your system is installed, to a
maximum of 90 days.  After that they charge per half-hour of phone
time.  They like to do support by fax and callback.
   They have 1 (one) support tech.  Ask for Reuben.
   They have a support BBS at (416)-752-2084.
   Knowledgeable customers report they're good about supporting the
bits they wrote (see below) but terrible at dealing with generic SVr4
problems.

FUTURE PLANS:
   They haven't settled on an upgrade policy yet.
   There are plans for a disk array product.

HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
   See the appendix for details.
   Though most reports say the Consensys PowerPorts board is fine for
UUCP use, at least two USENETters have reported problems with
interactive sessions; see below.

TECHNICAL NOTES:
   The X stuff is straight off the MIT X11R5 tape, patchlevel 8.

KNOWN BUGS:
   This port probably uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries.  Thus it
probably has the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug
in the BSD- compatibility string functions.

   One `Andy', mailing from <[e-mail]> says "You
should also blast Consensys for advertising that they provide DOS file
system utilities.  They do, but they were written for DOS 2.0!  They
do NOT work for DOS 5.0..."

   Syd Weinstein <[e-mail]> reports: "The most major [bug in
the PowerPorts support] is delays in various output codes....  Even if
not using the multi-screen stuff, a clear to end of line escape code,
and some others, cause noticable delays in the output.  (About 0.1
seconds).  It makes running Elm a real bitch".  He is in touch with
Consensys about this.

   It has been reported on USENET (by Gerry Swetsky
<[e-mail]> among others) that if you drop off of a
PowerPorts line without manually closing all your sessions, the
unclosed sessions may be accessible to the next person to pick up the
line.

   Gil Kloepfer, Jr. <[e-mail]>, managing the Houston UNIX
User's Group's system, says that during interactive use the board
frequently does not handle typeahead properly (this may be related to
Syd Weinstein's problems with EOL delay).  He also says he hasn't been
able to bring up stable UUCP with the board.

COMMENTS:
   Their UNIX product is an outgrowth of their main line of business,
selling serial boards.  It is easy to configure the OS to support the
board.

WHAT THE USERS SAY:
   I've spoken with one experienced wizard using Consensys and seen a
detailed email report from another.  They're happy, although they both
warn that newbies should probably *not* try this at home :-).

   On the other hand, Consensys has a dismal reputation on USENET;
horror stories of nonexistent followup on bugs abound.  They'll need
to work hard to shuck their take-the-money-and-run image.  Better
followup on the reported serial-port board bugs would be a big help.
Unfortunately, Consensys's favored response seems to be to deny that
they have a problem.

   One customer (J.J. Strybosch, <[e-mail]>) reports that
Consensys charged his credit card for more than they quoted him.  If
you deal with them, watch your credit card statement carefully.

REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
   These guys have the toughest support policy of any vendor and
obviously don't want to hear from you once you've gotten past initial
boot.

   A Consensys marketroid that I spoke with twice while gathering this
information offered to send me an evaluation copy of their system.
They were clearly hoping for some good publicity if I like it.
However, I doubt they like me that well any more...

   Consensys explicitly refuses to say how many development engineers
they have on staff.  In this and some other matters (such as the way
they deal with allegations of PowerPorts problems) they've adopted a
corporate style that appears defensive, evasive, secretive, and not
conducive to trust.  I couldn't make their V.P. of sales understand
that this appearance is a serious liability in dealing with UNIX
techies and distinguishes them from the competition in a distinctly
negative way.


NAME:
   Dell UNIX System V Release 4 Issue 2.2.

VENDOR:
   Dell Computer
   9505 Arboretum Road
   Austin TX 78759
   (800)-BUY-DELL (info & orders)
   (800)-624-9896 (tech support: x6915 to go straight to UNIX support)
   [e-mail]    --- basic Dell info
   [e-mail] --- support queries

SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
   Basically, there aren't any.  You get the development system with
all the trimmings for a lower list than anybody else in the top tier.
Whaddya want, egg in yer beer?

ADD-ONS:
   Dell bundles a DOS bridge (Locus 2.2, supporting DOS 5.0) with
their base system.  They also include cnews, mmdf, perl, elm, bison,
gcc, emacs gdb, Tex, network time protocol support, and other
freeware, including a bunch of nifty X clients!  Also included: the
Xylogics Annex server for TCP/IP network access.

   FrameMaker is also included, but runs in demo mode only until you
buy a license token from Unidirect.

SUPPORT:
   Dell *does* support their UNIX on non-Dell hardware.  They are
quite definite about this.  They will deal with software problems
reported from non-Dell hardware, but you're on your own when dealing
with hardware incompatibility problems unless you can reproduce the
problem on a Dell PC.  However, it is also policy that if you lend
them the offending hardware, they will work with the vendor to come up
with a fix.

   You get 90 days of free phone support on a toll-free number,
starting on resceipt of your registration card (no card, no support).
Yearly service contracts range are $350 per year for the limited
license, $500 for the unlimited.

   There are 6 engineers in their first line and 4 in their
second-line support pool.

   Dell accepts software problem reports from anyone, Dell or non-Dell
hardware and whether or not they have a support contract.  If you
don't have a support contract, don't count on getting a reply
acknowledging the report.

   Dell maintains a pair of Internet servers (dell1.dell.com and
dell2.dell.com) which hold patches, updates and free software usable
with Dell UNIX.

   About upgrades, Dell says "If you have a support contract, the
upgrade is free, unless we've added something with significant royalty
burden to us.  We may make a charge at that point.  We didn't when we
added Graphical Services 4.0 at the introduction of Dell UNIX 2.1.  If
you don't have a contract, then the cost is basically
Media+Royalty+Admin+Shipping."

FUTURE PLANS:
   X.desktop 3.0 will be supported soon.  NeWS isn't going to happen
at all; they couldn't get it to work reliability.

   Dell has demonstrated a 486 port of NeXTSTEP at trade shows.

   Dell is going to move to Solaris someday.  However, policy is that
they're not going to phase out SVr4 until at least a year after their
first *reliable* version of Solaris, in order to provide an upgrade
path.

TECHNICAL NOTES:
   The big plus in the Dell code is that they've fixed a lot of the
annoying bugs and glitches present in the stock USL tape.

   The installation procedure has been improved and simplified.  You
can install Dell UNIX through your network from another Dell box once
you've booted the hardware with a special disk provided.

   Both benchmarks and anecdotal reports make them significantly
faster than a stock USL system.  Interestingly, Dell's manager for
UNIX development tells me this is all due to bug fixes and careful
choices of some OS parameters.

   A source at Dell has asked me to point out that Dell's SLIP can be
set up, configured, and stopped while UNIX is running; some other
versions (such as SCO's) require a reboot.  However, others claim that
SCO's can actually be reconfigured without a reboot and that the SCO
*manuals* are at fault here for misleading people.

   Dell device drivers are *very* unlikely to work on other SVR4
versions.  Dell includes some kernel extensions (not required, so
other SVR4 device drivers should work) to make life in support a
little easier.  A program called showcfg will list all recognised
device drivers and the IRQ, I/O address, shared memory and so on.  The
device driver has to register this info.  Dell has told USL how to do
this, it's up to them when or even if they want to use this in a
future release.

   Dell device drivers are also auto configuring, for the most part.
Check out /etc/conf/sdevice.d/* and see how most of the devices are
enabled, but with zeroes in all fields for IRQ, I/O and memory.  Those
are autoconfiguring drivers.  Dell thinks that this makes life much
easier; you only need to set one of the configurations that they probe
for!  The device registration helps this, by eliminating possible
overlapping memory or I/O address usage.  (On the other hand,
idconfig(1) is no longer helpful, when I/O, IRQ and mem are all zero).
The 2.2 release adds a utility `setcfg' which can be used to remove
unneeded drivers, shrinking the kernel.

   Dell UNIX also has drivers for the Dell SmartVu found on some
machines (a little four character LED display on the front panel).  By
default this shows POST values, then disk accesses, finally "UNIX"
when running and "DOWN" when halted.  You can write to the device.

   Dell's SCSI tape driver includes ioctls to control whether hardware
compression is used.

   Some Dell systems have a reset button.  On the Laptops these are
wired directly to the CPU.  On the desktop and floor-standing systems
Dell UNIX can catch the interrupt; it's used to do a graceful (init 0)
shutdown.  Other UNIXes will do a processor reset when the button is
pushed.

   About 95% of 2.2 was built using GNU cc for a significant
performance improvement over pcc.

KNOWN BUGS:
   Uucico fails when sending more than 12 files to another machine.
Fixed in 2.2; a patch is available free from Dell for earlier
versions.

   Performance monitoring of uucp transfers doesn't work. Creating
/var/spool/uucp/.Admin/perflog results in uucico logging statistics to
the file correctly. However, using uustat -tsysname results in either
a memory error or you just being returned to the shell with no output.
This bug is known to Dell and being worked on now.

   Merge is seriously buggy in many areas. It takes ages to start up
in an xterm and then sometimes crashes in the process. Attempting to
use its simulated expanded memory results in the system becoming
slowly corrupted which later results in virtual terminals disappearing
and the system gradually locking up. Really fun stuff! And it can only
cope with 1.44M discs.  These are generic Merge problems, not really
Dell's but Locus's fault.

    There are some dropped stitches in the supplied USENET tools.  The
nntp server has been compiled for a dbm history file while c-news has
been compiled for dbz.  With nntpd this only shows on the ARTICLE
<message-id> command which either returns that the article with that
id can't be found or crashes the server.  Also, they forgot to include
the nntpd manual page or nntpxfer.  A Dell source thinks these things
have been corrected in 2.2.

HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
   Dell doesn't maintain a list of non-Dell motherboards and systems
known to work.  And they're not willing to talk about the list they
don't maintain, because it would amount to endorsing someone else's
hardware.

   Dell promises that you can bring its UNIX up on any Dell desktop or
tower featuring a 386SX or up (it's hard to get the product on to the
notebooks).  Notebooks can't drive a QIC tape and there aren't drivers
for the pocket Ethernet or token-ring adapter.

   Jeffrey James Persch <using a friend's account> reports that he
couldn't get the X supplied with Dell UNIX 2.1 to work with a
Microsoft bus mouse hooked to the mouse port on a Compaq 486/33M or
Systempro.

   Andrew Michael <[e-mail]> says "If you're buying
Dell UNIX for non-Dell hardware, first try booting the Dell floppy on
it.  From experience, some BIOS ROMs cause Dell SVR4 to lock up at the
point where it tries to talk to the hard disk.  If it gets to the
point where it asks you whether you want to install or not you can be
pretty sure that all is well.  An AMI or Phoenix BIOS is OK; be
careful of anything else."

   See the appendix for more.

COMMENTS:
   Dell sells hardware, too :-).  They are, in fact, one of the most
successful clonemakers, and will cheerfully sell you a Dell computer
with SVr4 pre- installed.  Their systems are expensive by cloner
standards (with as much as a $1000 premium over rock-bottom street
prices) but they have a rep for quality and reliability their
competition would probably kill for.

   You can get Dell product information by sending an email request to
[e-mail].

WHAT THE USERS SAY:
   Most people who've seen or used it seem to think pretty highly of
the Dell product, in spite of minor problems.

   A user in England observes: "Dell is the only firm that I found
supplying Unix at the real monetary exchange rate, not the usual
computer pounds=dollars nonsense.  In the UK the 2 user version costs
699 pounds, which is pretty close to the US price in dollars.  For
those of us who don't live on the left-hand side of the pond (there
are a few of us!) that's a distinct advantage."  He adds "Dell's UK
support is pretty good.  Not as good as Sun, but then you don't pay as
much!  From previous experience, SCO support in the UK is, well,
pretty non-existent."

REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
   Right now, I'd have to call Dell the market leader in SVr4s.  The
combination of low price, highest added value in features, and
reputation for quality makes them very hard to beat.

   The only serious negative I've seen is that their support system
seems to be very badly overloaded, so you can end up on hold for a
while when calling.  The techs themselves are sufficiently cranked
about this that they'll complain of understaffing and corporate
shortsightedness on the phone to a stranger.

   Dell has recently doubled their support staff and fixed a bad bug
in their call-handling system that was freezing the queue for up to
two hours at a time.  This will certainly help matters.

   On the other hand, Dell's UNIX development manager responded to the
first issue of this FAQ with about three hundred lines of intelligent,
thoughtful and extremely candid comment, including a whole pile of
hardware-compatibility info and a number of excellent suggestions for
improving the FAQ.  He has continued to send voluminous, factual
feedback to later issues --- an example other UNIX vendors would do
well to emulate!


NAME:
   ESIX System V Release 4.0.4

VENDOR
   Esix Computers
   1923 E. St. Andrew Place
   Santa Ana, CA 92705
   (714)-259-3020   (tech support is (714)-259-3000)
   uunet!zardoz!everex!esixtech

ADD-ONS:
   None.

SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
   ESIX can be bought in the following pieces:
                                                        Unlim   2-user
   Base system                                          784     384
   Base system + Networking                             866     396
   Development system                                   131     N/A
   GUI module (X, Motif, Open Look, X.desktop)          610     380

Note that the base system without networking cannot be upgraded to the
base system with networking; you'd have to replace at full cost.

SUPPORT:
   Purchase buys you unlimited free phone support.  However, be warned
that there are only two engineers assigned to the job and they are
swamped.

   Esix offers a support BBS at (714)-259-3011 and 3013 (the 11 line
has a Trailblazer on it).  They plan to bring up an Internet server in
the near future.

FUTURE PLANS:
   They don't plan to support DOS Merge because it's still horribly buggy.
   Later in '92 they plan to release a multiprocessing UNIX.

TECHNICAL NOTES:
   Stephen J. Friedl and D'Arcy Cain <[e-mail]> have written a
device driver for Everex's STEP systems that can control the LED array
on the front of the box.

   Relative to 4.0.3, 4.0.4 includes numerous bug fixes, a rewritten
SCSI driver, and better SCO binary compatibilty.  The GUI package is
significantly different, changing from a home-grown ESIX
implementation of X to a licenced implementation of AT&T's xwin
implementation (with ESIX support for additional video cards added in.

HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
   See the appendix for details.  ESIX supports an unusually wide
range of peripherals.
   They advertise support for the Textronix X terminal.
   No one has reported any incompatibility horror stories yet.

KNOWN BUGS:
   According to Esix, this port uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries.
Thus it must have the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored
bug in the BSD- compatibility string functions.

COMMENTS:
   Another subsidiary of a clonemaker (Everex).  They don't sell
bundled hardware/software packages yet.

   Esix will sell you manuals troffed off the SVr4 source tapes for
somewhat less than the cost of the Prentice-Hall books.  The content
is almost identical but the organixation into volumes a little
different.

   Unlimited free support sounds wonderful, and might be ESIX's
strongest selling point.  However, ESIX users on the net have been
heard to gripe that in practice, you get the support you've paid for
from Esix --- that is, none.  That isn't at all surprising given
Esix's staffing level.  If this guarantee is to be more than a hollow
promise, their technical support has to get more depth.

   Evan Leibovich <[e-mail]> is a long-time netter who makes
his living as a consultant and owns an Esix dealership.  He says you
can get ESIX at a substantial discount from him or other dealers, also
that dealers are supposed to do first-line support for their customers
(which he does, but admits other dealers often fail to).  Evan is
obviously devoted to the product and probably the right guy to email
first if you think you'd be interested in it.

WHAT THE USERS SAY:
   Ron Mackey <[e-mail]> writes "In general, we are pleased with
ESIX.  We still have problems driving the serial ports at speeds
greater than 9600 baud.  We also still see occasional PANICs.  These
appear to be related to problems with the virtual terminal manager."
This may be the generic USL asy problem again.

   William W. Austin <uunet!baustin!bill> writes "The support from
Esix seems to be usable if (a) you are a hacker, (b) you know unix
(sVr4 internals help a lot), and (c) you get past the sales guy who
answers the help line (Jeff [Ellis] is *very* helpful).  If I were a
computer-semi-literate, commercial user who only wanted his printer to
work, etc., I might be up a creek for some problems (no drivers for
some boards, no support for mouse tablets, etc., but that's what VARs
are for). All in all, the support is at least a little better than
what I expected for free -- in many cases it is *far* better than the
support I got from $CO (is SCO really owned by Ebenezer Scrooge?)"

   A longer appreciation from Ed Hall <[e-mail]>: "I had a
problem with the ESIX X server.  I got through to technical support
immediately, and was promised a fix disk.  The guy on the phone was
actually able to chat with on of the developers to check to see if the
disk would solve the problem.  The disk came four days later."

   "On the other hand," he continues, "I get the feeling that ESIX has
only made a mediocre effort to shake out the bugs before releasing
their system-- or even their fixes.  For example, they `repaired'
their X server, but the new server only ran as root (it made some
privileged calls to enable I/O ports)--they quickly had to release a
second update to fix this new problem.  They obviously fixed a lot of
things in the new server, and performance is improved quite a bit as
well, but the stupid error they made in the first "fixed" version
should have been found with only the most minimal of testing."

   "They've done some work on the serial driver, but there are still
some glitches (occasional dropped characters on a busy system at
38400bps, and a real doozy of a problem--a system panic--when doing
simultaneous opens and ioctl's on a tty0xh and ttyM0xh device.  This
latter problem was due to my using the M0xh and 0xh devices
improperly, but panics are inexcusable.  No idea if this is a SYSVR4
problem or due to their fixes.)"

   "So my impressions of them are mixed.  Perhaps I just lucked out in
geting such rapid response on my support call, but I was impressed by
it nonetheless.  On the other hand, their QA needs work..."

REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
   The tech I spoke with at Esix seemed knowledgeable, bright, and
very committed to the product.  Nevertheless, when I asked what he
thought distinguished ESIX from the competition, he had no answer.

   This reinforced the feeling I got from the spec sheets that Esix
has kind of an also-ran mentality, with no market strategy or clear
priority for improving SVr4 that positions it against its competition.
It doesn't have Dell's steak-with-all-the-trimmings appeal, it's not
pushing price like Consensys or support quality like UHC or
performance like Microport.  (I'm told that at one time, Everex was
the price leader).

   When I asked Esix's chief marketroid about this, he said that he
thinks ESIX's best asset is that the product isn't going to go away,
and muttered unkind things about the possibility that Dell would
deep-six their SVr4 in favor of Solaris 2.0.  This does not a
long-term strategy make.


NAME
   MST UNIX

VENDOR:
   Micro Station Technology, Inc.
   1140 Kentwood Ave.
   Cupertino, CA.  95014
   (408)-253-3898
   [e-mail] (product info & orders)
   [e-mail] (support)

ADD-ONS:
   None.

SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
   C Development System
   Networking
   X11R4 and X11R3
   Motif
   Open Look

SUPPORT:
   30 days of support free with purchase.
   1 year of fax/email support is $299, 1 year of phone support is $599.

FUTURE PLANS:
   They expect to upgrade to Motif 1.2 and X11R5 Summer '92.  No plans
for 4.0.4 yet.

HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
   They've promised to email me a list of hardware known to work,
which will appear in a future posting.

   They decline to release information on hardware known *not* to work
for fear of offending vendors.

KNOWN BUGS:
   This port probably uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries.  Thus it
probably has the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug
in the BSD- compatibility string functions.

   The DOS support is only 2.0-compatible (< 32-meg DOS partitions).

COMMENTS:
   Another outfit offering stock USL real cheap.  They were actually
the first to try this (in Fall '91) and were the price leader until
Consensys blew past them.

   These guys really want to sell you preinstalled UNIX on their clone
hardware.  Configurations range from $1349 to $5599 and look like
pretty good value.

WHAT THE USERS SAY:
   I have one experience report from Ray Hill,
<[e-mail]>, who's been running MST on a 486 for a month
or so.  He says it works; elm, cnews, and trn are up, so standard UNIX
sources compile up and work fine.  His only criticism is the relative
skimpiness of the printed docs.

   Harlan Stockman <[e-mail]> writes "MST has been
very helpful at every step of the way; phone and e-mail support have
been timely."

   Geoffrey Leach <[e-mail]> warns that some of the
files (specifically, socket library headers) necessary to build X11R5
are bundled in the networking option --- this may meen you have to buy
it even if you don't actually intend to network any machines.

REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
   Anyone who's been to a hobbyist computer expo in the last five
years knows that the low-price clone-hardware market is full of small,
hungry companies run by immigrants, often family businesses.  Their
English is sometimes a little shaky but (in my experience) they're
honest and their product is good, and their prices are *real*
aggressive.

   MST seems to be one of these outfits.  Since Consensys ended their
promo MST is now the low-price leader in this market.


NAME:
   Microport System V Release 4.0 version 4

VENDOR:
   Microport, Inc.
   108 Whispering Pines Drive
   Scotts Valley, CA 95066
   (800)-367-8649
   [e-mail] (sales and product info)
   [e-mail] (support)

SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
   Networking (TCP/IP, NFS)
   Software Development
   User Graphics Module (X GUIs)
   Graphics Development Module (X toolkits + man pages).
   DOS Merge

ADD-ONS:
   A few freeware utilities are included, notably kermit(1) and less(1).
   They include a single-user copy of a program called `JSB
MultiView'.  It's a character-oriented desktop program that front-ends
conventional UNIX services for character terminals and also provides a
calendar service and pop-up phone-book.  It's something like a
character-oriented X windows; each on-screen window looks like a
terminal to the application.

SUPPORT:
   The base price includes printed docs.  This is effectively the same
content as the Prentice-Hall SVr4 books; both are troffed off the SVr4
source tapes.  They have been very lightly edited for the Microport
environment.

   The base price includes 30 days or 1 year of phone support
respectively depending on whether you bought the base or complete
system.  Support is said to be excellent for serious problems, not so
good for minor ones (this is understandable if one assumes their
support staff is very good but overworked, a hypothesis which is
plausible on other evidence).

   They have a support BBS at (408)-438-7270 or 438-7521.  However,
the level of activity is low; one customer said (late February) that
they hadn't put anything useful on it in six months (Microport
responds that they've been too busy hammering on r4 to spend lots of
energy on it).

FUTURE PLANS:
   DOS Merge will be folded into the system soon.

   Also working on improved performance for the Adaptec 1742 and other
SCSI controllers, expect that in May.

   Microport believes they have a lead in multiprocessing UNIX and
intend to push it.

   File-system support for CD-ROMs is coming.

HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
   See the appendix for details.

   Math co-processors: Cyrix 20/25/33, Intel 80387 20/25/33, Weitek.

   No one has reported any incompatibility horror stories yet.
Bernoulli boxes and Irwin tapes won't fly, but who cares.

TECHNICAL NOTES:
   When I asked what differentiates Microport from the other SVr4
products, the answer I got is "performance".  The Microport people
feel they've put a lot of successful work into kernel tuning.

   And, indeed, benchmarks from independent sources show that
Microport's fork(2) operation is quite fast.  Other vendors show about
60 forks per second on the AIM Technologies SUITE II benchmarks;
Microport cranks 80.  This is the most dramatic performance difference
the AIM tools reveal among any of these products.  Microport's other
benchmark statistics are closely comparable to those of its
competitors.

   Microport also offers a symmetric multiprocessing SVr4 which will
run on the Compaq SystemPro, the ALR PowerPro, the DEC 433MP, and the
Chips & Technologies Mpax system.

   Microport has moved the socket headers and libraries necessary to
build X out of the networking option package into the development
system, so you don't have to buy an extra module to hack X.

KNOWN BUGS:
   According to Microport, this port uses the stock USL 4.0.4
libraries.  Thus it must have the known bug with sigvec() and may have
the rumored bug in the BSD-compatibility string functions.

   David Wexelblat reports that "Microport's enhanced asy driver does
not work correctly (or at all) for hardware flow control - you can't
open the ttyXXh devices under any circumstances.  This was true in
3.1, and is still true in 4.1.  The good news is that SAS
(Streams-FAS) works fine for modems.  But SAS won't work with the AT&T
serial mouse driver.  So I've got asy on my mouse port and SAS on the
other one on my dumb-card. [...] Microport is still prone to silly
errors.  The Motif development system, which is described in the
release notes as being included with the Motif runtime system in the
'complete' package, is in fact missing from the tape.  They have it
available seperately, but I had to call them to get it.  The 'pixed'
application for X.desktop 3.0 is compiled with shared libraries that
are not included with the release.  Hence it does not work.  I had to
call them about this, too."

COMMENTS:
   These people sold a lot of shrink-wrapped UNIXes years ago before
going chapter 11.  They're back, leaner and meaner (with a total staff
of just 15).

   Microport says it's primarily interested in the systems-integration
market, where customers are typically going to be volume buyers
qualifying for deep discounts.  Thus, they're relatively undisturbed
by the certainty that their high price point is losing them sales to
individuals.

WHAT THE USERS SAY:
   I've received one good comprehensive experience report, largely
favorable, from David Wexelblat <[e-mail]>.

REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
   Microport is a small, hungry outfit with a lot to prove; they've
already gone bust once (I was a customer at the time :-() and they
haven't yet demonstrated that they've got a better strategy this time
out.

   They're perhaps a mite too expensive for the support quality they
can offer with less than fifteen people, and kernel-tuning isn't going
to win them a following on hardware that every year swamps those
tweaks with huge increases in speed for constant dollars.  It may be
that they're counting on the symmetric-multiprocessor version to be
their bread-and-butter product; there, at least, they're offering
something that is so far unique and promises performance levels
unattainable with conventional hardware.

   And, like UHC, they have techies answering the phones and the
techies have a clue.  This certainly improves them as a bet for
wizards and developers.  If multiprocessing is important to you,
and/or you're looking for a small outfit where you can develop
personal working relationships with the tech people who matter,
Microport might be a good way to go.

   They've offered to send me a copy of their OS gratis for review and
evaluation purposes.


NAME:
   UHC Version 3.6

VENDOR:
   UHC Corp.
   3600 S. Gessner
   Suite 110
   Houston, TX 77063
   (713)-782-2700
   [e-mail]

SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
   Networking package (TCP/IP).
   X + Motif
   X + Open Look

ADD-ONS:
   None reported.

SUPPORT:
   The base price includes printed docs.  This is effectively the same
content as the Prentice-Hall SVr4 books; both are troffed off the SVr4
source tapes.

   30 days free phone support with purchase.

   All their engineers take tech-support calls for part of their day.
They have 2 doing it full-time.  The product manager is a techie
himself and takes his share of calls.

   A support contract costs $1195 for one year.  This includes 75% off
on all upgrades.

   They are in the process of bringing up a BBS with a window into
their bug report and fix/workaround database.

   It was emphasized to me that UHC wants to be known for the quality
of their support, which they feel is the product's strongest
differentiating feature.

FUTURE PLANS:
   X11R5 by mid-May or thereabouts.  They have it running now but
don't consider it stable enough to ship.

HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
   See the appendix for details.

   The asy driver in version 2.0 won't talk to the NS16550AFN UART,
which is supposed to be pin-compatible with the standard 16450.

KNOWN BUGS:
   This port probably uses the stock USL 4.0.3 libraries.  Thus it
probably has the known bug with sigvec() and may have the rumored bug
in the BSD- compatibility string functions.

COMMENTS:
   They claim that according to USL they have the largest installed
base of SVr4 customers, and to have been first to market with a
shrink-wrapped SVr4 (in 1990).

   UHC also claims to have performed and maintained IBM's official
UNIX port for the MicroChannel machines.

   A subsidiary of Anam, "a holding company with a diversified
portfolio".

WHAT THE USERS SAY:
   The only comment I've yet seen on the UHC OS was an extended
description of a successful installation by a satisfied netter.  He
made it sound like a good solid product.

   I have one absolutely incandescently glowing report on UHC support
from a developer named Steve Showalter <[e-mail]>.  He says:
"We've been running UHC's OS for about a year now...been EXTREMELY
happy with it.  The support we receive is without a doubt, the finest
we have received from any vendor."

   Duke Smith (c/o [e-mail]) writes: "Another absolutely
incandescently glowing report on UHC support: I called the
Programmer's Shop about UHC & wound up talking to UHC tech support to
find out if the sucker would run on my machine. The guy took
considerable time to explain all the different things that might be
causing the problem, and emphasized that the same hardware problems
which were probably causing Consensys not to run would also hose UHC.
This led me to contact ALR tech support (also a glower) who took all
of 1-1/2 days (not including shipping) to do the necessary upgrades,
on warranty because apparently their ads that it will run Unix are
covered by warranty.  The glowing thing about UHC is, the guy helped
me get a competitor's port working, and I told him he was gonna get in
dutch with the marketroids and his response was that maybe I would
remember them the next time I or someone I knew needed a system. He's
right. I'll use Consensys until I can afford something better for my
own system (it's still better than DOS...), but from now on my clients
will get pointed toward UHC, not Consensys, whose absent-parent
attitude is going to keep them from ever becoming anything but the
destitute hacker's Unix vendor."

   On the other hand, William G. Bunton <[e-mail]>: "So, I
give a thumbs up for the product.  I give a thumbs down for the
company, and it's enough that I'm taking my future business
elsewhere."  He tells a horror story about the 2.0 version involving a
three-month runaround, a letter to their VP of marketing, and lots of
broken promises.  Apparently UHC does sometimes drop the ball.

REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
   I found both the people I talked to friendly, candid, technically
knowledgeable, and willing to answer sticky questions.  I came away
with a very positive impression of the outfit's operating style.

   There are experienced UNIX developers who value dealing with a
small, responsive outfit where they can develop good working
relationships with individuals.  UHC says it likes to sell to wizards
and might be a good choice for these people.

    The second time I called (*after* I'd formed the above
impressions) one of their guys offered to trade me a copy of UHC UNIX
with all the trimmings for an autographed copy of
_The_New_Hacker's_Dictionary_.  So they have taste, too.  I'm too
ethical to let this sway my evaluations, but not too ethical to take
the software... :-)


NAME:
   BSD/386

VENDOR:
   Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
   3110 Fairview Park Drive, Suite 580
   Falls Church, VA 22042 USA
   (800)-800-4BSD
   [e-mail]

SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
   None.  You get an unlimited user license, binaries *and sources*
for the entire system.  What more could you want?

SUPPORT:
   The purchase price include 60 days of phone support.

   A telephone-support contract is $1500 per year; email-only support
is $500/year.  Either kind includes upgrades.

FUTURE PLANS:
   Capability to run SVr3.2 binaries (including SCO binaries), 3Q92.

   They intend to add a DOS bridge by the end of '92.

   The current release (0.3) is a fairly stable beta.  Rob Kolstad
sez: "Our release date for production goes like this:

        * Gamma release in late July
        * Gamma updates to ever-growing subset of beta testers until
          release exhibits good stability
        * Production release in late September"

HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
   See the appendix for details.  New drivers are being added all the time.
   Multiport serial boards aren't supported (they're working on it).
   The Orchid graphics co-processor is not supported.

TECHNICAL NOTES:
   Alone among the 386 UNIX versions described here, this version is
*not* based even in part on USL code and has no AT&T license
restrictions.  Rather, it derives from Berkeley UNIX (the CSRG
Networking 2 release, somewhere between 4.3 and 4.4).

   Many of the BSD/386 tools, including the compiler, are GNU code.

   This system's libraries, header files and utilities conform to
X3J11, POSIX 1003.1 and POSIX 1003.2 standards.

COMMENTS:
   What these people are trying is audacious --- something
functionally like the SVr4 merge, but starting from a ported BSD
kernel and with System V compatibility hacks, rather than the other
ways.  By all accounts the product is in far better shape right now
than one would expect for a beta pre-release, which argues that the
developers have done something right.

WHAT THE USERS SAY:
   The few who've seen this system display an evangelistic fervor about it.

REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
   I expect this will become a hackers' favorite.

   All this, and sources too...I salivate.  I am tempted.  Not sure
I'm ready to change OSs at the same time as I switch machines, though.
SVr4's got better continuity with the 3.2 I'm running now.  Ghu, what
a dilemma!

   When I mentioned that I'm doing elisp maintenance for GNU EMACS
these days, Rob Kolstad, one of the principal developers, offered me a
copy and a year of support if I'd field their (so far nonexistent)
EMACS problems.


NAME
   Mach386

VENDOR:
   Mt. Xinu
   2560 Ninth Street
   Berkeley, CA 94710
   (510)-644-0146
   [e-mail]

ADD-ONS:
   Kernel sources!  You get can sources for the Mach 3.0 microkernel
for $195 over base price.

SOFTWARE OPTIONS:
   The base package includes: Mach 2.5 kernel and utilities, 4.3 BSD
interface, GNU utilities (GCC, GDB, GAS, EMACS, BISON), and on-line
reference manuals (man pages) for Mach and 4.3 BSD.  The following
options are available:

   Networking (SUN NFS, TCP/IP networking from the Berkeley Tahoe
release, on-line NFS man pages).

   X (X11R4 with programmer's environment and complete X manual pages).

   On-line Documentation (Complete source for Mach and 4.3
documentation, including Mach Supplementary Documents, System
Manager's Documentation, 4.3 BSD Programmer's Supplementary Documents,
4.3 BSD User's Supplementary Documents).

   Optional Microkernel Add-on, Mach 3.0 (Complete Mach 3.0
microkernel source code; complete build environment with tools to
modify and rebuild the Mach 3.0 microkernel; binary BSD server which
runs on top of the microkernel in place of the standard /vmunix
kernel; source for an example of a server (POE) running on top of the
Mach 3.0 microkernel and sources for some utilities which are
kernel-dependent.

SUPPORT:
   You get 30 days phone support with purchase.

   A support contract is available for $150 quarterly or $500 per
year; this includes upgrades.  There is a support BBS open to contract
holders only.

   An ftp server at autosupport.mtxinu.com carries patches,
enhancements and freeware adapted for the system

FUTURE PLANS:
   They plan to move to OSF/1 this year.  X11R5 and Motif support are
also in the works.

HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
   See the Appendix for details.

   Color X windows is supported on VGA boards via extended 8-bit color mode.

   Toshiba and Toshiba-compatible floppy drives and controllers work.

   All current motherboards tested have worked.  There were a few
problems with early Compaq DeskPros.  They add "Please note that we do
not support the microchannel bus, EISA extended modes, IBM PS2, and
some NCR machines.  We are, however, considering new devices so let us
know your interests!".

TECHNICAL NOTES
   This product is essentially a 4.3 port built on the Mach project's
microkernel technology.  This is a truly nifty architecture which
builds a 4.3BSD-compatible kernel out of a collection of communicating
lightweight processes.  The distinction between user and kernel mode
almost vanishes, and things like the schedular and virtual-memory
manager which are normally embedded deep in the kernel become
semi-independent, modifiable modules.

COMMENTS:
   Very appealing for the educational market --- lets CS students and
hobbyists tinker creatively with the guts of UNIX in a way that would
be impossible under more conventional UNIXes.  It's not clear who else
will be interested in this.

WHAT THE USERS SAY:
   Eric Baur <[e-mail]> writes:
   "The system is a very faithful emulation of BSD43 on top of Mach.
For our purposes it is a super deal. For about $2000.00 in hardware
and $995.00 in software we have a Mach development platform that
integrates almost seamlessly into our network development environment.
As a general-purpose UNIX (whatever that means) Mach386 gives up a lot
in features to the System V vendors.  (Virtual terminals, DOS
emulation, etc etc) For the home hacker, except for UUCP problems it
seems like it would be a good deal. You obviously could never run
"shrink-wrapped" software, but most public domain and GNU stuff should
port easily."

   Mark Holden <[e-mail]> adds "Mt. Xinu's tech
support is absolutely top-notch, and I've found them quite willing to
deal with matters even after the official support runs out. [...] Not
that Mach386 is without its quirks.  I've had problems getting a
Western Digital ethernet board to work correctly, and things required
a fair bit of tweaking to set things on a smooth course, but then I've
never worked with a BSD that didn't."

REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:
   Right now, this product is a solution looking for a problem --- a
solution I find technically fascinating, to be sure.  But even the
company admits to not being sure who its market is.  I wish 'em luck.

KNOWN BUGS:
   From Eric Baur <[e-mail]>: "I have not been able to
get the supplied uucp to work when calling a telebit modem. The
connection is established but the Mach end hangs up and exits without
any indication why.  Taylor uucp ported in about 1 hour and works
~fine. There is no support, however, for bi-directional lines if you
use the Taylor uucp. The uucp supplied with the system has the
gawd-awful acucntrl hack, but I don't know if it even works. [...]
Overall I remain very pleased with Mach386. [...] It has yet to
manifest any truly bad behavior. No panics - no hangs. It interacts
flawlessly with our network of Suns. NFS and X are very robust.  I
would ditch my System V at home and buy Mach386 is a minute if I could
get bi-directional serial lines to work."

   In fact, it does appear that one can get bidirectional UUCP to
work.  David Brown <[e-mail]> testifies that this can be done
without using the acucntrl hack.


V. HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY TABLES

These tables summarize vendor claims and user reports on which
hardware will work with which port.

To save space in the tables below, we use the following *one-letter*
abbreviations for the OS ports:

S       SCO UNIX version 3.2.4

C       Consensys UNIX Version 1.2
D       Dell UNIX Issue 2.1
E       ESIX System V Release 4.0.4
M       Micro Station Technology SVr4 UNIX
P       Microport System V/4 version 4
U       UHC Version 3.6

B       BSD/386 (0.3 beta)
X       Mach386

A `c' indicates that the hardware is claimed to work in vendor literature.
A `y' indicates that this has been verified by a user report.
A `.' indicates that whether this combination works is unknown.
An `n' indicates that the vendor advises that the combination won't work.
A `*' points you at footnote info.

A blank column indicates that I have received no vendor info on the
hardware category in question.

The following general caveats apply:

* All ports support EGA, VGA, CGA and monochrome text displays.

* All ports support generic ISA serial-port cards based on the 8250 or
16450 UART.  According to the vendors, the asy drivers on Dell, Esix,
Microport, BSD/386 and Mach386 support the extended FIFO on the
NS16550AFN UART chip.  Indeed, Dell tech support will tell you this
feature was present in the base USL code.  UHC says its 2.0 drivers
*don't* talk to 16550s but says that will be fixed in March '92.  A
user reports that SCO has supported the 16550 since 3.2.2.

* I have not bothered listing ordinary ST-506/IDE/RLL drives, though
lists of them are given in vendor literature.  This is a very mature
commodity technology; anything you buy should work with one of the
supported controllers unless it's defective.

* Vendors' supported hardware lists are not models of clarity.  Some
iterms may be listed under a couple of different names because I don't
know that they're actually the same beast.  I have been very careful
not to make assumptions where I am ignorant; thus, some hardware may
appear less widely supported than it actually is.

* These tables are grossly incomplete.

Also, be aware that there is a fundamental design problem in the ISA
architecture that can cause 8-bit boards used in a system with 16-bit
boards to flake out even if they're actually compatible.  Jeremy
Chatfield of Dell describes it this way:

"We've seen (and fixed) this with several card combinations.  If you
have an 8 bit card and a 16 bit card in the same address range, then
the address decoding on the ISA bus will find that the 128KB range
includes a 16 bit card.  It therefore programs itself for 16 bit I/O.
If you then do I/O with the 8 bit card, every other data byte is
garbage.  You will also have a reboot problem, because the 16 bit card
usually starts in 8 bit mode and has to be switched to 16 bit mode.
If the switch back to 8 bit mode is not made, and the address range is
the c0000-d0000 range, close to the VGA BIOS, the VGA BIOS accesses
are screwed, because they are performed in 16 bit mode because of the
above PC H/W architectural problem.  We include a deinit sequence in
all the 16 bit device drivers that causes a shutdown to reset the
accesses to the safer 8 bit mode.  Of course, after a panic, the
machine still has boards set up in 16 bit mode, so you might observe
the problem then.

This affects *all* PC OS's.  I have seen cases where DOS failed to
reboot because of the same nonsense (network card in 16 bit mode in
same address region as VGA BIOS).  Clever programming can resolve in
several ways."

All the SVr4 systems inherit support for a fairly wide range of
hardware from the base USL code (version 4.0.3 or 4.0.4).  This
includes:

* All PC disk controllers (ESDI, IDE, ST-506 in MFM and RLL formats).

* The Adaptec 1542B SCSI adapter.  Note: you'll have to jumper your
  SCSI devices to fixed IDs during installation on most of these.

* Western Digital's 8013EBT Ethernet card, and its equivalents the
WD8003 and WD8013.  SVr4v4 adds the 3Com 3C503.

* VGA adapters in 640x480 by 16 color mode.

* "C" protocol serial mice like the Series 7 and Series 9 from
Logitech and the PC-3 mouse from Mouse Systems (however, we've had one
report of an ostensible PC-3 clone called the DFI200H not working).
See the "HOT TIPS" section for details.

SCO UNIXes from 3.2.2 up and ODT 1.1 also support all these devices.

If you can fill in any of the gaps, or convert a `c' to `y', send me email.

S C D E M P U B X       Systems
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c     .   c   .         Acer (all 386/486 models)
.     .   .   c         ACCELL 486/33 ISA and 386/40 ISA
.     c   .   .         ADDA AD-428P-25, Portable 486/25, 486/33, AD-328D-25
.     c   c   .         ALR Business VEISA 386/33-101
c     .   .   .         ALR (all 386 and 486 models)
c     .   .   .         applicationDEC 316,316+,325,325C,333,425,433MP
c     .   .   .         Apricot LS, LS 386SX, XEN-S 386
c     .   .   .         Arche 486, Master 486/33
.     .   c   .         AST (models not specified)
.     c   c   .         AST Premium (models not specified)
c     .   .   .         AST Premium 386,386/33,486/25T*E*,486/33T*E*
c     .   c   .         AT&T 6386 machines
.     .   c   .         Compaq (models not specified)
c     c   c   .         Compaq DeskPro 386/33.
c     .   .   .         Compaq DeskPro 486s/20,486/25/486/33L,386/20,386/25
c     .   .   .         Compaq Portable III 386, SystemPro
c y y y y y y .         CompuAdd Model 333
c     .   .   .         DEC DS486, DECpc 433, DECpc 433T
c     .   .   .         DECstation 320,325,425
c   y .   c   .         Dell 310,325,325P,333P,316SX,316LT,320SX,320LT.
c   y .   c   .         Dell 433P,425E,433E,425TE,433TE,4xx[DS]E,486[DP]xx.
c     .   .   .         EasyData 386 model 333
c     .   .   .         Epson Equity 386/20PC,386/25,386SX; Epson PC AX3,AX3/25
.     c   c   .         Everex (models not specified)
y     .   .   .         Everex 33,386/20,486,486/33
.     c   c   .         Gateway 2000 (models not specified)
.     .   c   c y       Gateway 2000 (486/33 ISA)
.     .   . y .         Gateway 2000 486/25
c     .   .   .         Groupil Uniprocessor 25MHz Tower
c     .   .   .         GRiDCase 1530,1550SX
.     .   c   c         High Definition Systems 486/25 ISA and 386 SX/16 ISA
.     y   .   .         High Definition Systems 386/40 ISA
c     .   .   .         HP 486 Vectra series
c     .   .   .         IBC 486
c     .   .   .         ITT 486
y     .   .   .         Micro Way Number Smasher 486/33
c     .   .   .         Mitac 386, MC3100E-02, S500
c     .   .   .         Mitsuba 386
c     .   .   .         Mitsubishi PC-386
c     .   .   .         NCR 316,316SX,3386
c     .   .   .         NEC 386/20,486/25, BusinessMate and PowerMate
y     .   .   .         NEC 386/33 BusinessMate
c     .   .   .         Noble 386
c     .   .   .         Nokia Alfaskop System 10 m52, m54/55
c     .   .   .         Northgate 33
.     c   c   .         Northgate 386/33
.   y .   .   .         Northgate 486/33
c     .   .   .         Olivetti 386/486 machines
y     .   .   .         Packard-Bell 386x
c     .   .   .         PC Craft PCC 2400 386
c     .   .   .         Phillips 386, P3464 486
.     c   c   .         Primax (models not specified)
c     .   .   .         SNI 8800-50, 8810-50, PCD series
c     .   .   .         Schneider 386 25-340, 386SX System 70
c     .   .   .         Siemens Data Systems Model WX200
c     .   .   .         Starstation
c     .   .   .         Tandy 4000
y     .   .   .         Tatung Force 386x
c     .   .   .         Tatung Force TCS-8000 386, TCS-8600 386
.     c   c   .         Tangent (models not specified)
.     y   .   .         Tangent 386/25C
.     c   y   .         Tangent 433E (486/33 EISA)
.     c   c   .         Televideo (models not specified)
c     .   .   .         Televideo 386/25
c     .   .   .         Texas Instruments System 1300
c     .   .   .         Toshiba T3100,T3200,T5100,T5200,T8500,T8600
.     c   c   .         Twinhead (models not specified)
y     .   .   .         Twinhead 800 (486/33)
.     c   c   .         Unisys (models not specified)
c     .   .   .         Unisys PW2 Series 800/16,800/20,800/25
c     .   .   .         Victor 386 25, V486T
c     .   .   .         Wang MX200, PC 380
c     .   .   .         Wyse 386
n     .   .   .         Wyse Decision 486/33 (intermittent crashes)
c     .   .   .         Zenith 386 and 486 machines

S C D E M P U B X       Motherboards
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      c   .   .         AGI
y     .   .   .         A.I.R. 486/33EL w 256K cache
      .   c   .         ALR
      .   c   .         AMAX
      .   c   .         AMI (model not specified)
      y   c   .         AMI Enterprise II (33 & 50)
      .   c   .         ARC
    n .   c   .         Cache Computer
      .   c   .         Chips & Technologies chipset
    y .   c   .         Chips & Technologies 33DX
      c   c   .         Club AT
      .   c   .         DataExport
    y .   c   .         Dell
      .   c n .         DTK (model not specified)
      y   . n .         DTK 386/33
      .   .   c         EISA Tech 80386SX MHz
    y .   .   .         Eteq 386
y     n   .   .         Eteq 486
      .   c   .         Free Technology (model not specified)
    y .   .   .         Free Technology 486/50DX
y     y   .   .         Gigabyte GA-486US 33MHz 256K Cache
c     .   .   .         Intel 302
      .   c   .         Microlab
      c y c y c         Micronics 386/25
      c   c y c y       Micronics 486/33 ISA
      y   .   .         Micronics 486/33 EISA
      .   c   .         Mitac
      .   .   .         Modular Circuit Technology 386/SX 16Mhz
y     .   .   .         Motherboard Factory 386/40, 486/33 (Northgate's OEM)
      .   c   .         Mylex (model not specified)
      c   c   .         Mylex MI-386/20
y     y   y   .         Mylex MAE486/33
    y .   c   .         OPTI 486
      .   c   .         Orchid
      .   c   .         PC-craft
      y   .   .         TMC Research Corporation PAT38PC 25/386,33/386
      y   .   .         TMC Research Corporation PAT38PX 33/386,40/386

Notes:

* These two tables probably way *understate* the compatibility of most
ports.  Most ISA or EISA motherboards will work with all of them.
However, Jeff Coffler <[e-mail]> reports: "I
couldn't get the Cache Computer CPU board to work at all with Dell
UNIX, even though they claimed they work with SCO.  Flaky,
timing-related failures."

* A source at UHC describes the DTK boards as "dogshit" --- he says
they generate a lot of spurious interrupts that DOS is too cretinous
to be bothered by but which completely tank UNIX.  He says DTK seems
uninterested in fixing the problem.  Other correspondents confirm that
this has been going on for several years.  Avoid these boards till
further notice.

* Dave Johnson <[e-mail]> reports that since upgrading from a
386 to an Eteq 486, they've had lots of UHC random panics due to page
faults in kernel mode.  UHC is looking into this.

S C D E M P U B X       Video Cards                     Max Res         ChipSet
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. . c y   * . .         Appian Rendition GRX, II, IIXE  1024x768x256  TIGA34010
. . c .   . . .         Appian Rendition III            1280x1024x256 TIGA34020
. .   .   c . .         ARC V-16 (Paradise)             ????            ????
. .   .   c c .         AT&T VDC 600 (Paradise clone)   SVGA            ????
c .   .   .             AST VGA Plus                    800x600x16      WDC
c . y .   c . .         ATI Ultra                       1024x768x256    Mach 8
. . y .   c . .         ATI Vantage                     1024x768x256    Mach 8
c .   c   c n .         ATI Wonder+                     SVGA N          Wonder
. .   .   c c .         ATI (type not specified)        ????            ????
. . y .   . . .         Boca SuperVGA                   1024x768        ET4000
c .   .   . . .         Chips 451                       800x600x16 N    C&T451
c .   .   . . .         Chips 452                       1024x768x16 N   C&T452
c .   .   . . .         Compaq Advanced VGA             640x480x256 N   ????
c .   .   . . .         Compaq Plasma                   640x400x2 N     non-VGA
c .   .   . . .         Compaq LCD VGA                  640x480x16 N    ????
c .   .   . . .         Compaq VGC                      640x480x16 N    ????
. c   .   . . c         Compuadd Hi-Rez card w/1meg     1024x768        ET4000
c .   .   . . .         Cornerstone SinglePage          1008x768        ????
c .   .   . . .         Cornerstone PC1280              1280x960        ????
c .   .   . . .         Cornerstone DualPage            1600x1280       ????
. . y .   . c .         Dell VGA                        1024x768        ????
. c y c   c y c y       Diamond SpeedStar               1024x768        ET4000
c c   .   . . c         Eizo MD-B07, MD-B10, Extra/EM   1024x768        ET3000
. .   c   . . .         Everex ViewPoint VRAM           SVGA+           ????
. .   c   . . .         Everex ViewPoint True Color     SVGA+           ????
. .   c   . . .         Everex UltraGraphics II EV-236  1664x1200       mono
c .   c   c c c         Genoa 5300/5400 superVGA        SVGA N          ????
c c   .   c . c         Genoa 6000, 6400                SVGA N          ????
c .   .   . . .         Grid 1500 laptop                640x400x2     CGA-like
y .   c   c . .         Hercules monographics display   720x348         mono
c .   .   . . .         IBM 8514/A                      1024x768x256    8514/A
c . y .   . . .         IBM VGA                         VGA             VGA
c .   .   . . .         IBM XGA                         1024x768x256    XGA
c .   .   . . .         Matrox MWIN1280                 1280x1024x256 N ????
. .   c   . . .         MaxLogic                        SVGA            ????
. .   . . c . .         Microfield V-8                  1280x1024       ????
c .   .   . . .         Miro Magic                      1280x1024x256 N ????
. .   . . * . .         Mylex GXE (EISA)                1280x1024     TIGA34020
. .   c   . . .         Oak Technology OTI-067          1024x768        16, 256
c .   .   . . .         Olivetti EVC-1                  1280x1024x256   ????
. c   .   . . c         Optima Mega/1024                1024x768        ET4000
c .   .   . . .         Orchid Designer                 SVGA            ET3000
c c   y   c c c         Orchid ProDesigner              800x600         ET3000
c c y y   y . y         Orchid ProDesigner II/1024      1024x768        ET4000
. .   *   y . .         Orchid ProDesigner IIs          1024x768        ET4000
c .   .   . . .         Paradise VGA Plus               SVGA            PVGA1A
. c   c   c c c         Paradise VGA Professional       SVGA            PVGA1A
c c c .   c . .         Paradise VGA 1024               SVGA            WD90C00
c .   .   . . .         Paradise 8514/A                 SVGA+           ????
c .   .   . . .         QuadRAM QuadVGA                 SVGA            ????
c .   .   . . .         Renaissance Rendition II        1024x768        ????
y c y y   c . c         Sigma Legend                    1024x768        ET4000
. .   .   c c .         Sigma VGA/H                     ????            ????
c .   c   c c .         STB EM-16 VGA, EM-16+ VGA       SVGA            ET3000
c .   .   . . .         STB Extra-EM                    SVGA            ET3000
. c   c   c . c         STB PowerGraph w/1meg           1024x768        ET4000
. c   .   . . c         Swan SVGA with VCO chip         1024x768        ET4000
c .   c   . . .         Tecmar VGA AD                   SVGA            ET3000
c .   .   . . .         Toshiba Grid 1500 laptop        640x400x2     CGA-like
. c   .   . . c         TRICOM Mega/1024                1024x768        ET4000
. .   .   c . .         Trident SuperVGA                ????            T880
c .   .   . . .         Trident TVGA 8900               1024x768        T8900
. .   .   c c .         Tseng Labs VGA                  ????            T4000
. .   c   . . .         Vectrix VX1024 (TI-34010)       1024x768        ????
c .   .   . . .         Verticom MX/AT                  800x600         ????
c .   c   c c .         Video7 FastWrite VGA            800x600 x2, x16 ????
c .   .   c c .         Video7 VRAM VGA                 800x600x16      Video7
c .   .   c c .         Video7 VRAM II VGA              SVGA            Video7
c .   .   c c .         Video7 VEGA                     EGA 640x380     Video7
c .   .   . . .         Video7 VGA1024i                 SVGA            Video7

In this table, an `SVGA' resolution code signifies the following
resolutions: 1024x768 at 2 and 16 colors, 800x600 at 2, 16, 256
colors, and 640x480 at 2, 16, 256 colors.  SVGA+ adds 1280x1024 at 2
or 16 colors.  Some non-interlace boards are marked with N.

Caveats in interpreting the above table:

* All super-VGA cards will work at VGA resolutions and below (that is,
resolutions up to 640x480 in 16 colors).

* This list is not exclusive.  Many (perhaps even most) dotted
combinations will work. UHC claims that any SVGA based on an ET3000,
ET4000, Paradise or Genoa chip-set will fly; Dell echoes this with
regard to ET3000, ET4000, WD90C0xx cards, and the same is probably
true of all other vendors.

* The Renaissance GRX-II is the same board as the Appian Rendition II;
the company changed its name.  The II/XE is compatible with the
Rendition GRX and the Appian Rendition II, it differs in architecture
in that it supports more DRAM and runs a little faster than the older
cards.  All Rendition II type cards run at a maximum resolution of
1024x768-256, the Renditon III runs at 1280x1024-256 with its full
VRAM set.

* Consensys's list is just MIT's list of cards certified to work with
X11R5; Consensys is careful to note that they haven't tested all these
themselves.

* An ESIX reseller says all the TIGA34010-based video cards are pretty
much alike and ESIX will drive any of them.  ESIX also supports
720x348 resolution on cheap Hercules-compatible monochrome tubes, and
the Everex UltraGraphics display at 1664x1200 resolution.

* Beware the Trident and Oak chipsets.  Many clone vendors bundle
these with their systems because they're cheap, but they break the
Roell server and some other X implementations.  Also, they appear to
argue with the WD8003EP net card, and no re-arrangement of the jumpers
seems to fix it.

* Third party server technology from companies like MetroLink can
support higher performance, higher resolution TIGA and proprietary
technology.

* Dell's 2.2 adds X11R5 servers for VGA 640x480, 800x600 and for the
Tseng Labs ET4000 and WD90C11 in up to 1024x768 16 or 256 colour.
Appian Rendition II (formerly Renaissance) for 1024x768 TIGA 34010.
Highest performance from the ATI Ultra 1024x768 256 colour, and
highest resolution from the 1280x1024 256 colour JAWS (Dell
proprietary card developed in association with Lotus and MicroSoft)

* The Orchid ProDesigner IIs (top speed 80 MHz, not the 75MHz version)
works with both X386-1.2D and X386-1.2E (beta). It works ok with the
ESIX 4.0.3 X11R4 stuff at any resolution under 1024x768. But the
driver does *not* work with 1024x768 (timings are way off). The
vanilla ProDesigner II does work correctly with both the X386 and the
Esix X11's (R5 and R4, respectively).  Note: this info may change in
ESIX 4.0.4, which uses a different X.

S C D E M P U B X       Mice
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . y c y y   y c       (Logitech-compatible) 3-button serial mice (C protocol)
c . y c   c   n y       (Logitech-compatible) 3-button bus mice (C protocol)
. . . c   .   n .       ATI Wonder+ bus-mouse port
c . . .   .   . .       HP C1413A Mouse
y . y .   .   . .       IBM PS/2 keyboard mouse
c . y y c c   n .       Logitech MouseMan (M+ protocol)
c c y c c c c c .       Logitech Trackman (serial, M+ protocol)
c c y c   c   n y       Logitech Trackman (bus, M+ protocol)
c . . .   .   . .       Logitech hi-res Keyboard Mouse
c . y c   c   . y       Microsoft 2-button (serial, M protocol)
c . y c   c   n y       Microsoft 2-button (bus, M protocol)
c . . .   .   . .       Olivetti Bus Mouse
c . . .   .   . .       Olivetti hi-res Keyboard Mouse
. . . .   .   . c       SummaMouse
c . . .   .   . .       Summagraphics Bitpad

Notes:

* See the discussion of mice at the beginning of this section for details.

* BSD/386 says it supports all 1200-9600 baud serial mice, specifying
Logitech as an example.  This is probably true of all vendors.

* The MouseMan and TrackMan require a patch obtainable from SCO to run
under ODT 1.1; they're fully supported in 2.0.

* X11R5 (X386 1.2) supports all of the known mice on SVR4 in a native
mode, bypassing the mouse driver.  This wasn't true with X11R4 (X386
1.1b).  So if you're using X386 1.2 exclusively, you can use (say) a
MouseMan regardless of which SVR4 you're using.

* Dell 2.2 includes an auto-configuring mouse driver that's supposed
to work with about anything.  Non-factory-installed 2.2s may require a
patch from support to handle the Logitech Mouseman.

S C D E M P U B X               Multi-port serial cards
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . . .   .     .       AMI lamb 4 and 8-port
. . y c   c     n       Arnet (models not specified)
c . y .   .     .       Arnet 2,4 and 8-port and TwinPort
c . . c   c     n       AST 4-port
. . . .   c     n       Central Data
c . . .   c     n       Chase Research
c . c .   c     n       Computone (models not specified)
c . y .   .     .       Computone Intelliport
c . . .   .     .       Computone ATvantage-X 8-port
c . . .   .     .       Comtrol Hostess-4
c . . c   c     n       Comtrol Hostess-8
. c . c   y     n       Consensys PowerPorts
c . . .   .     .       CTC Versanet 4AT and 8AT
c . y .   .     .       Digiboard 4 and 8-port
. . y c   c     n       Digiboard DigiChannel PC/8.
y . y .   y     n       Equinox
. . c .   c     n       Intelliport
c . . .   .     .       Kimtron Quartet 4-port
y . . c   c     n       Maxpeed
c . . .   .     .       Olivetti RS232C Multiport board
c . . .   .     .       Quadram QuadPort 1 and 5-port
y . y .   c     n       Specialix
. . y .   c     n       Stallion OnBoard
. . . .   c     n       Stargate (models not specified)
c . . .   .     .       Stargate OC4400 (4-port) and OC8000 (8-port)
c . . .   .     .       Tandon Quad serial card
. . y .   c     n       Technology Concepts
c . . .   .     .       Unisys 4-port

Notes:

* Only SCO, Consensys, Dell, Esix and Microport listed multiport cards
at all.  As some are `smart' cards which require special device
drivers, you should *not* assume that a board is supported on a
particular port unless the vendor explicitly says so.

* MtXinu says they have *no* multiport support right now.

* The Consensys PowerPort card has troubles; see the vendor report on
Consensys for details.

* The Chase, Computone, Intelliport and Specialix cards will run under
SCO using a vendor-supplied driver.

* The Maxpeed SS8-UX2 doesn't support RTS/CTS flow control, and
requires its own config scripts rather than using inittab and
gettydefs.

* Peter Wemm <[e-mail]> writes: "In 2.1, Dell's
drivers (direct from Stallion) are flakey.  I have been annoying the
living daylights out of the developers (Stallion) here in AUS, and
their new drivers have an `interaction' problem with the reboot
mechanism in dell's kernel.  A reboot causes the VGA card to be
disabled."  Jeremy Chatfield of Dell replies: "We haven't seen the
problem he reports.  Most likely the problem he's seeing is an icky
[generic] one for UNIX on a PC."  He then proceeds to detail the 8-16
clash described at the beginning of this section.

S C D E M P U B X       Disk controllers
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . c c   c . .         Adaptec 2320/2322 (ESDI)
c . c .   c . .         Adaptec ACB 2730C (RLL)
c . y .   c . .         Adaptec ACB 2732C (RLL)
c .   .   . . .         Compag 32-bit Intelligent Drive Array Controller
c .   .   . . .         Compag 32-bit Intelligent Drive Array Expansion
. . c .   c . c         CCAT100A (IDE)
. .   .   c . .         Chicony 101B
y . y c   c . .         Data Tech Corp 6280 (ESDI)
. .   .   c . c         DTG 6282-24
. . c c   c . .         Everex EV-346 (ST506)
. . c c   c . .         Everex EV-348 (ESDI)
. . c c   c . .         Everex EV-8120 (IDE)
y . c .   . . .         Lark ESDI controller
. . c c   c . .         OMTI 8240 (ST506)
. . c .   . c .         PSI Caching controller (ESDI)
c . c .   . . .         SMS OMTI 8620 and 8627 (ESDI)
. . y .   . c .         Ultrastor 12C, 22F
y . y .   c c c         Ultrastor 12F
c . c .   . n .         Ultrastor 22C (caching EISA version of 12F)
. . y .   c . .         Ultrastor 22CA
c c y c   c . .         Western Digital 1003 (RLL)
c .   .   . . .         Western Digital 1005
. .   y   . . .         Western Digital 1006V-MM2 (ST506)
y . y y   c . c         Western Digital 1007 A,SE2 (ESDI)
. .   .   c . .         Western Digital 1009 SE1/SE2

Notes:

* All these ports should support all standard PC hard-disk controllers (ESDI,
  IDE,ST-506 in MFM and RLL formats).

S C D E M P U B X       SCSI controllers
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c .   .   . . . .       Adaptec 152x (non-bus mastering ISA host adapter)
y c y c y y c c c       Adaptec 1540, 1542
c . n .   . . . .       Adaptec 1640 (MicroChannel version of 154x)
c . y c   c n c .       Adaptec 1740,1742 (EISA) (1542 emulation mode)
c . . y   . * . .       Adaptec 1740,1742 (EISA) (enhanced mode)
. .   .   c . . .       Always IN2000
y .   c   c . . .       BusTek BT-542B
y .   c   c . . .       BusTek BT-742A (EISA) (mPort specifies Revision F)
c .   .   . . .         Compag SCSI Option Adapter and Compression Adapter
c .   .   . . . .       Corollary SCSI-CPU
. .   .   c c . .       DPT PM2102 caching controller (MFM emulation)
c .   .   c . . .       DPT PM2102 caching SCSI controller in SCSI mode
. .   c   . . . .       Everex EV8118/8110
c .   c   . . . .       Future Domain 1660, 1680, 885, 860
y .   .   . . . .       IBM HardFile (their SCSI host adapter for MicroChannel)
. .   .   c . . .       Mylex DCE (EISA)
c .   .   . . . .       Olivetti ESC
. .   .   . c . .       PSI caching controller
c .   .   . . . .       Storage Plus SCSI-AT "Sumo"
. .   .   c . . .       Ultrastor 32k 12u
c . y c   c c . .       Western Digital WD7000
c . y .   . . . .       Western Digital WD7000-EX (EISA version of WD7000)

Notes:

* UHC started shipping a native-mode 1740/1742 driver in mid-April.  It
  requires a full SCSI-2 tape drive.

* BSDI says they plan to support the 1740 in native mode in the production
  release.

* The BusTek 542 is a clone of the Adaptec 1542.  At least one respondent
  thinks it works better and faster with the Adaptec drivers than the
  Adaptecs do!  The BusTek 742 has more complicated antecedents; it's an
  EISA clone of the 1542, not necessarily compatible with the 1742.

* There's a known bug in the Adaptec 1742 firmware that produces hangs
  when it's used with certain SCSI tape drives, including the popular
  Archive 2150S.

* Bill Austin <uunet!baustin!bill> writes: "the 1740 patches on ESIX [4.0.3a]
  do work but only bring the speed up in enhanced mode by about 15% over
  standard (643Kb/s vs 535Kb/s) in writing, although the *read* speed
  has nearly tripled (2,833 Kb/s) (this is using "iozone 16").  This may give
  some idea of what improvement to expect from native-mode 1740 operation.

S C D E M P U B X       Network cards
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c . . .   . . . y       3COM EtherLink I 3C501 and 3C502
c . c y   c . . c       3COM EtherLink II 3C503
c . . .   . . c .       3COM EtherLink 16 (3C507)
c . . .   . . . .       3Com 3C523 & 523B EtherLink/MC
c . . .   . . . .       3Com 3C523 EtherLink/MC TP
. . . c   . . . .       Everex EV-2015, EV-2016, EV-2026, EV-2027
c . . .   . . . .       HP 27245A EtherTwist Adapter Card/8 ISA TP
c . . .   . . . .       HP 27247A EtherTwist Adapter Card/16 ISA TP
c . . .   . . . .       HP 27250A ThinLAN Adapter Card/8 ISA BNC
c . . .   . . . .       HP 27248A EtherTwist EISA Adapter Card/32
c . . .   . . . .       IBM Token-Ring Network Adapter
c . . .   . . . .       IBM Token-Ring Network Adapter II (short and long card)
c . . .   . . . .       IBM Token-Ring Network Adapter 4/16
c . . .   . . . .       IBM Token-Ring Network Adapter/A
c . c .   . . . .       IBM Token-Ring Network 16/4 Adapter/A
c . . .   . . . .       Microdyne (Excelan) EXOS 205, 205T, 205T/16
c . . .   . . . .       Racal Datacomm NI6510 ISA and ES3210 EISA
. . y c   c c . c       Intel PC-586 aka iMX-LAN/586
. . . .   . . c .       Novell NE2000
y c y y c c c c c       SMC & Western Digital 8003 and 8013 and variations
. . y .   . . . .       WD TokenRing card

Notes:

* SCO support of SMC EtherCards and the 3C507 requires a patch
available from their BBS.

* Dick Dunn <[e-mail]> opines "Somewhere along here,
somebody needs to note that the 3C501 is a
miserable-misbegotten-son-of-a-lame-she- camel-and-a-desperate-jackal
Ethernet card, at least in UNIXland.  It has serious problems in any
serious multi-user system because of various hardware idiosyncrasies
which are on the order of can't-walk-down-the- street-and-chew-gum."
Do tell, Dick!

S C D E M P U B X       Tape drives
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c y y c   y . c .       Archive 2150S or Viper 150 21247 (SCSI, QIC-150)
c .   c   c . . c       Archive Viper VP150E
c .   .   c c . .       Archive Viper 60 21116
c .   .   c c . .       Archive Viper 150 25099
c .   .   c c . .       Archive Viper 2525 25462.
y .   .   c . . .       Archive 60 - 525MB (QIC-02 and SCI)
c .   .   c . . .       Archive 4mm 4520 DAT
c .   .   c c . .       Archive Python models 25501-003, -005 and -008 (SCSI)
c .   .   . . . .       Archive Python DDS 4520NT and 4521NT DAT drives
c c   *   c c . c       Archive XL (5580 & friends)
. .   .   c c . .       Archive 3800
. .   .   . c . .       AT&T KS22762 and KS23495 (SCSI)
c .   .   . . . .       Bell Technologies XTC-60
. .   c   . . . .       Caliper CP150
c .   .   . . . .       Cipher CP-60B, CP-125B
. .   c   . . . .       Cipher ST150S-II
c .   .   . c . .       Cipher ST150S2/90 (SCSI)
n .   .   c . . .       CMS Jumbo - 60MB QIC-40
n .   .   . c . .       Emulex MT02/S1 +CCS INQ (SCSI)
. .   c   c . . .       Everex Excel Stream 60, 125, 150
. .   c   c . . .       Everex5525ES (SCSI)
. .   c   c . y .       Everex EV-811, EV-831, EV-833
c .   .   c c . .       Exabyte EXB-8200 (SCSI)
c .   .   . . . .       HP 35450A (SCSI)
. .   .   . c . .       HP 88780 (SCSI)
. .   .   . c . .       HPCIPHER M990 (SCSI)
. .   .   . c . .       NCR H6210-STD1-01-46C632 (SCSI)
c .   .   . . . .       Mountain 8mm Cartridge
y .   .   . n . .       Mountain FileSafe 150MB (QIC-02)
c .   .   . . . .       Mountain FileSafe 60-300MB (QIC-02)
c . y .   . . . .       Sankyo 525ES (SCSI)
. .   .   . c . .       Sony SDT-1000 (SCSI)
. .   .   c . . .       Tallgrass 150 - 525MB SCSI
c .   .   . . . .       Tandberg DQIC (SCSI)
. .   .   . . . c       TUV DAT
c . y .   c . . .       Wangtek 150SE (SCSI)
c .   c   c y . .       Wangtek 5150ES (SCSI)
c .   .   c . . .       Wangtek 60 - 525MB (QIC 02 and SCSI)
c .   .   c . . .       Wangtek 6130 - HS 4mm DAT.
c .   .   y c . .       Wangtek 5125ES ES41, 5150ES ES41, 5150ES FA0 (SCSI)
c .   .   c c . .       Wangtek 5150ES SCSI-3 (SCSI)
c .   .   c . c .       WangTek 5150PK QIC-02 (QIC-150)
c . y .   . . . .       Wangtek 5525 (SCSI)
c .   .   c c . .       Wangtek 6130-F (SCSI)
c .   .   c c . .       Wangtek KS23417, KS23465, KS24569 (SCSI)

Notes:

* All SVr4s inherit USL support for QIC-02, QIC-36 1/4", or SCSI tape
interfaces, using QIC-24 (9-track, 60MB), QIC-120 (15-track, 125MB) or
QIC-150 (18-track, 150MB) formats.

* A user says of Dell: it appears that anything using Wangtek
QIC02/QIC36 controllers works; this should include the Wangtek 525MB,
Cipher ST150S2, and Archive 2150S drives.

* UHC specifies the following tape controller/drive combinations:
Wangtek PC-36 + Wangtek 5099-EN, Everex 811 + Wangtek 5150-EN, Bell
Tech + Wangtek 5150-EN, Archive SC499-R + Archive External FT-60,
Archive VP402 + Archive Viper 2150L, Everex 811 + Archive Viper 2150L,
Bell Tech + Archive Viper 2150L, Archive VP402 + Archive Viper 2150L.

* UHC claims that Any floppy tape supporting the QIC-107 physical and
QIC-117 logical interface specs and QIC-80 or QIC-40 recording formats
should work.  This is probably true of other vendors as well.

* BSDI says it supports almost any Wangtek 1/4" standard 3M streamer
with a QIC-02 or QIC-36 interface.  However, they admit that the
Archive SC402 QIC-02 controller will not work.

* Floppy tapes don't work on Dell; USL provides the support, but it
collides with Dell's code for auto-detecting the density of a
diskette.

* SCO's tape compatibility table lists drive/controller pairs; not all
drives listed have been included here.  They allege that any QIC-02
drive should work.  Unofficial sources inside SCO claim any SCSI drive
ought to work.

* A source at SCO says the CMS Jumbo is neither compatible with
QIC40/QIC80 nor Irwin "standards", vendor supplies their own driver
which SCO does not support.  CMS is in general fairly UNIX-hostile;
don't buy their stuff if you have a choice.

* The Emulex MT02 is a QIC02 bridge controller for the SCSI bus --
lets you take an old QIC02 drive and run it on a SCSI bus.  It is said
to use a very old version of the SCSI spec; caveat emptor.

* John Plate <[e-mail]> writes: "According to a fax from the
Archive manufacturer Maynard, [the XL 5580 drive only works with ESIX
4.0.3] if the tape drive is "drive" two!  Which is the same as
disabling the second floppy drive and then set a jumper on the tape
drive."

S C D E M P U B X       Non-Winchester mass storage
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.  c  .   . .           Bernoulli 90MB exchangeable SCSI
.     .   c .           Hitachi, Toshiba (models not specified)
.     .   . c           Maxtor RXT-800HS
.     c   c .           Storage Dimensions XSE1-1000S1 optical disk
.     y   c .           SyQuest cartridge media
.  c  .   . .           Tandata
.     c   c c           Toshiba TXM-3201A1 CD-ROM
.     .   c c           Toshiba WM-C050
.     c   c c           Toshiba WM-D070 WORM drive


VI. FREE ADVICE TO VENDORS:

   As a potential customer for one of the SVr4 ports, it's to my
advantage to have everybody in this market competing against one
another as hard as possible.  Accordingly, some free advice to
vendors, which I'm broadcasting to all of them and the public so as to
put just that much more pressure on each vendor. :-)

SCO:
   You have a serious image problem with many hackers which you've
exacerbated recently by falling behind the SVr4 leading edge and then
engaging in what certainly appears to be an attempt to sucker careless
buyers with deceptive product naming.  But the reaction to this
wouldn't be nearly so vehement if it didn't come on top of years of
discontent with more technical choices.  There's too much stuff in the
SCO kernel and admin tools that's different from USL and *not better*;
too much stuff that raises weird little compatibility problems that
shouldn't be there.  Verbum sap.

   This different-but-not-better problem is perfectly reflected by the
one thing about the otherwise-excellent SCO documentation that sucks
moldy moose droppings; the rearrangement and renaming of the reference
manual sections.  Your technical writers entertain a fond delusion
that this helps nontechnical users, but all it really does is confuse
and frustrate techies with experience on other UNIXes.  Lose it.

Everybody but SCO:
   SCO's documentation set is to die for (except in the one respect
noted above), and they add a lot of value over the base UNIX with
things like ODT DOS and CodeView.  Only Dell comes even close to
matching SCO in the nifty add-ons department, and even they have a lot
of room for improvement.  If you want to outcompete SCO, you have to
be *better*; this means (at minimum) supporting a windowing debugger
and ISAM libraries and embedded SQL and DOS support that goes beyond
2.0.

Consensys:
   Fix the Powerports bugs everyone is reporting.  They're doing you
real damage.  Nobody expects real support from an outfit selling at
$1000 below market average, but you've *got* to make your own hardware
work right or look like idiots.

   Beyond this, I think you have a serious attitude problem.  So far,
you're the only outfit out of nine to refuse to divulge information
for the comparison tables.  While you have a perfect right to do so,
it smells bad --- as though you think you have weaknesses to hide.  I
tried to discuss this with your VP of sales (Gary Anderson) and got
back very little but evasions, suit-speak, defensiveness, and attempts
to divert me from the issues (and I don't mind admitting that the
conversation made me pretty angry and didn't end very pleasantly).
This man's behavior is all too consistent with reports of Consensys's
dismissive behavior towards customers and continued refusal to
acknowledge technical problems.

   In this corner of the industry we have a tradition of collegiality,
mutual trust, informality, and candor.  If you plan to be here for the
long haul, you need to learn how to work with that rather than
fighting it.  Behaving like IBM will only get you hammered.

Consensys and Esix:
   Get a real support address.  Bang-path accessibility doesn't
impress anyone any more --- in fact, it looks faintly quaint.  You
guys ought to be [e-mail] and [e-mail] to
follow the simple and logical convention SCO and Dell and Microport
and UHC have established.

Dell:
   Don't get fat and lazy.  You've got the lead in the SVr4 market at
the moment and you've got the money and resources to keep it, *if* you
use them.  If you staff up your UNIX support operation so customers
don't get pissed off by infinite hold, *and* keep your prices the
lowest in the upper tier, no one will be able to touch you.  Don't let
Microport et al. get ahead of you in releases and new technology, and
try to reverse that creeping corporatitis (the
no-comment-on-unreleased-products policy is a bad sign).

Everybody but Dell:
   Offer all the free software Dell does --- and *more*.  All it will
cost you is the media, right?  Even if you have to plaster CONTRIBUTED
SOFTWARE, NOT SUPPORTED on it, include perl, elm, bison, gcc, emacs,
gdb, mush, patch, compress, etc on your distribution tapes.  Heck,
include some *games*.  Nethack, empire, zork, stuff like that.  Your
engineers use and play with all this in-house anyhow, yes?  And you're
selling to guys just like your engineers.  They'll love you for it.
Trust me.

   Set up a `sales' address to take product queries if you don't
already have one.

   A Dell person warns that the kinds of tweaks to the source made by
porting houses can break X/Open (XPG3) conformance.  Dell tests every
build with VSX (the X/Open-approved XPG3 test suite) and often finds
places where seemingly innocuous bug fixes cause XPG3 violations.
Other UNIX vendors would be well advised to do likewise.

Everybody but Dell and SCO:
   Set up an 800 number for tech support.  Support customers hate
spending time on hold, and they hate it like poison when they have to
*pay* for the hold time.  The more overloaded your support staff is,
the more important this gets.  Verbum sap.

Esix:
   You're *boring*.  You seem to make a decent product, but there's
nothing I've seen about ESIX that'd make me say "I might want to buy
ESIX because...".  Position yourselves; pick something like price or
support quality or reliability or add-on features and push it hard.
Warning: if you decide to push support, *hire more engineers*.  Your
rep for following up on support problems is bad enough that your
"unlimited free support" ain't much of a draw.

Esix, MST, UHC:
   Get 800 numbers for product info, too.

MST:
   Set up a [e-mail] alias to your cs address, see above.  What
would that take, a whole five minutes? :-)

   If you don't start planning for 4.0.4 now, you'll get left behind
this spring and early summer whan all the other vendors move to it.

   On present trends, your software prices are cheap enough; you'd
probably get more sales mileage out of pulling down the hardware
prices for your pre-configured systems.

Everybody but MST and Microport:
   Set up a `sales' alias to your info and orders email address.  A
universal convention for this means just one less detail prospective
customers need to remember.

Microport:
   Your complete system is way overpriced relative to what other
vendors in the top tier are selling.  If I were a corporate customer,
there is no *way* I could justify spending the $1K or $2K premium over
Dell's price --- not when Dell has the rep it does for quality and
features.  You aren't offering anything but a crippled copy of JSB
Multiview to justify that premium and that ain't enough.

   There's some evidence that you've got a technical lead on the
competition.  Push it; push it *hard*.  You're first off the blocks
with 4.0.4; keep that up, be first out with a stable 4.0.5.  Market
yourselves as the leading-edge outfit, court the hard-core wizards as
their natural ally, detail somebody who's fluent in English as well as
C to listen and speak for you on USENET, and keep the promises you
make there.

UHC:
   You've decided to push support; that's good, but follow through by
getting that 800 number.  Don't lose those small-company virtues of
candor and flexibility, trade on them.  Your policy of having all
techs clear up to the product manager take turns on the support lines
is a damned good idea, stick with it.  And I'm sufficiently impressed
with what I've heard from your guys that I think you might be able to
fight Microport for the friend-to-wizards mantle, too.  Maybe you
should try.

Everybody except BSDI:
   BSD/386 includes *sources*.  For *everything*.  Be afraid; be very
afraid.  In effect, this recruits hundreds of eager hackers as
uncompensated development and support engineers for BSDI.  Don't fool
yourselves that the results are necessarily going to be unfocused,
amateur-quality and safe to ignore --- it sure didn't work that way
for gcc or Emacs.  The rest of you will have to work that much harder
and smarter to stay ahead of their game.

BSDI:
   Don't you get complacent either.  The 386BSD distribution is
breathing down *your* neck...

   The most effective things you can do to to seriously compete with
SVr4 vendors are: a) emphasize standards conformance --- POSIX, FIPS,
XPG3, etc., and b) follow through on your support promises.  Just
another flaky BSDoid system isn't really very interesting except to
hobbyists, even with sources --- but if it were proven a reliable
cross-development platform it could capture a lot of hearts and minds
among commercial software designers.

Everybody:
   Do something about your product names!  Even the cases that don't
appear to be deliberate deception are very confusing to the customer.
If you're releasing an enhanced 4.0.3 or 4.0.4 that's what you ought
to *call* it.  I recommend:

        Consensys UNIX Version 1.2      --> Consensys UNIX 4.0.3 revision 1.2
        Dell UNIX Issue 2.1             --> Dell UNIX 4.0.3 revision 2.1
        ESIX System V Release 4.0.4     --> Esix UNIX 4.0.4 revision 4
        MST SVr4 UNIX                   --> MST UNIX 4.0.3
        Microport System V/4 version 4  --> Microport UNIX 4.0.4
        UHC Vers