🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <8712271935.AA07896@macs.UUCP> mgb@macs.UUCP (Michael Branton) writes:
<>
<>What Rainbow hardware is supported (eg. graphics board, extended comm op-
<>tion, disk controllers, disks, 8087 chip, clock chip) ?

There is a driver for the graphics board.  Support is provided through
the standard UNIX plot(1) utility and plot(3) routines.  In addition,
screen images can be dumped to a disk file and restored.  Using these
routines I've written a Mandelbrot set display program that produces
quite spectacular images on the Rainbow color monitor.  This program
isn't included but is available on request.

There is support for the extended comm option, which is actually rather
silly, since if you install the extended comm option you can't install
a hard disk controller.  Running VENIX without a hard disk is, except
for debugging and disk repair, useless.

VENIX/Rainbow supports the CHS disk controller.  It supports any properly
formatted disk.  VENIX has been tested with the following disks:

	DEC model	Make & model	Size (MB)

	RD51		Seagate ST412	   10
	RD52		Quantum Q540	   32
	RD53		Micropolis 1325	   67
	RD31		Seagate ST225	   20

The 8087 is supported.  The C compiler always generates 8087 code, preceded
by a system call that does nothing if you have an 8087, but otherwise invokes
a software 8087 emulator.  Thus, the same binaries run with or without the
8087.  Numerical calculations run 50 to 100 times faster with the 8087.

There is as yet no support for the various clock chips floating around.
It wouldn't be hard to add, though.

<>How much disk space does VENIX require ?

For VENIX, its utilities, the extra utilities we (BSW) include, and a
reasonable amount of swap space and temporary file space, allow about
6 megabytes.  On a 10MB disk that leaves about 4MB for user files, if
you don't leave a DOS partition.  If you want to leave a DOS partition
on your disk, or if you want to do serious work and have a lot of files
available, we recommend a 20MB disk, or larger.

<>Is source included ?

No.  Last I checked, a UNIX source license cost about $40,000.  I doubt
many people would be interested in spending $40,000 on Rainbow software.

<>What kind of printer support is available ?

Standard nroff driver tables.  You can roll your own;  included are tables
for the LA50, Teletype model 300, Diablo 1620, Epson FX80, and Qume
LetterPro 20.
-- 
Larry Campbell                                The Boston Software Works, Inc.
Internet: campbell@maynard.bsw.com          120 Fulton Street, Boston MA 02109
uucp: {husc6,mirror,think}!maynard!campbell         +1 617 367 6846