🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <499@vsedev.VSE.COM> ron@vsedev.UUCP (Ron Flax) writes:
>Isn't this just great! :-(  It seems that there really is an
>astounding gap in the UNIX micro market.... What a shame!
>
>I was in the same situation but finally decided to bite the bullet and
>buy an AT clone on which I originally ran Xenix V, am now running
>Microport UNIX V/AT, but would *really* like to run 4.xBSD UNIX.

Of course, if you're willing to run something that resembles Unix,
instead of _being_ Unix, there are a couple of 68K boxes around that
sell for < $5K, and have a workstation-like environment.

If you want them to use some specific Unix tool, you may need to spend
time investigating what's out there for them. Many Unix-like tools are
in the PD for these boxes; major packages that aren't tied to Unix
(TeX, for instance) may well exist on them already.

If you want to do code development, porting code to/from them will
have the same set of problems as porting code to/from different
Eunices: include files in the wrong places, non-v7 io primitives
aren't quite right, and terminal handling is broken. In addition,
anything that does multitasking will either have to be rewritten, or
won't be possible at all (which systems I wouldn't consider). 

The Amiga is the box with the most visibility. It's also got the least
Unix-like of the OS's around. Beyond the stuff mentioned in the last
paragraph, it's also got a different file name structure. But it's a
hackers toy, and you can get _lots_ of PD software for it (yacc/lex,
assemblers, a smalltalk, a logo, xlisp, etc.).

Various boxes running OS/9 are possibilities. The cheapest is the RS
Color Computer, which doesn't beat the problems of the 6809 address
space, but does have a real windowing environment. Various vendors 68K
boards and systems (Hazelwood, Gimix, SSB, FHL, and probably others)
are probably worth investigating. The base systems start for a grand
or so (price varying depending on whether you've got a 68000, or aa
grand or(price varying depending on whether you've g 68020); I'm not
sure how much a "workstation-like" box would cost. I know that
MicroWare (the people who produce & market OS/9) did an X port, and
are working on TCP/IP.

There are probably others out there that are worth looking into; most
of them would probably be much better programming environments than a
cheap AT clone with SysV (hey, windows is a _BIG_ win, even if you
have to give up csh!). Unless you've already decided that anything not
running Unix is a lossage (does the word "prejudiced" come to mind?),
it's probably worth you're time to look into the 68K micro market.

	<mike
--
Here's a song about absolutely nothing.			Mike Meyer        
It's not about me, not about anyone else,		ucbvax!mwm        
Not about love, not about being young.			mwm@berkeley.edu  
Not about anything else, either.			mwm@ucbjade.BITNET