🚀 go-pugleaf

> I have read of two UNIX-like shells for the PC.  They are:
>   1. Dr. Dobb's Journal of Software Tools
>      501 Galveston Dr. - Redwood City, CA 94063 
>      Shell=$29.95; /util=$29.95; Both=$50.
>   2. Kent William - 722 Rundell St. - Iowa City, IA 52240
>      Donation=$25. - will send compiled version & "C" source
> I don't know anything about either of these two, other than what I read in
> an ad. Anyone have any experience? 
I have not used the Holub-Shell ( #1 above); Kent William's PC-shell is
quite nice but introduces a number of deviations from C-Shell syntax which
I find annoying. Also, both PC-Shell, as well as the shell listed as #3 below
have slight troubles with programs which have the '/' hard-wired into them
as the switch character (i.e. DOS LINK, and a few other programs.). Also,
PC-Shell will not run well apart from COMMAND.COM - it has to be started 
on top of COMMAND.COM, not instead of it.

I would like to list two other shells currently available and mention
one about to be released:

   3. Micro C-Shell, by David Beckemeyer. He advertises in Dr. Dobb's,
      and his shell runs well as a replacement for COMMAND.COM. It is fairly
      close to the UNIX C-Shell, and sells for ca. $40.

   4. Percent Shell, from Thompson Automation. This seems (from literature
      I have received) one of the most complete and thought-through
      products of this type, with solutions even for the switch character
      problem mentioned above. It sells for ca. $100, from Thompson 
      Automation,

   5. MKS Korn Shell -- due for beta testing in November. This is part of
      version 2.1 of the MKS Toolkit. The entire toolkit, which includes
      such goodies as sed, awk, vi/ex, etc., sells for $139 from 
      MKS, 43 Bridgeport Rd. East, Waterloo, Ont. N2J 2J4, Canada; phone
      519-884-2251; uucp ihnp4!watmath!mks!toolkit.
      One of the nice things about the MKS toolkit is that they attempt
      to provide extremely complete implementations, based on SVR2; I
      expect their KORN shell to fit that pattern, supporting every
      feature that can possibly be implemented under MS-DOS.
Note that my only connection with both David Beckemeyer and MKS is as a 
very satisfied customer, and I have no connection with Thompson Automation.
-----------------------------------------------------
Wolf N. Paul, 290 Dogwood, Plano, Tx. 75075
UUCP:  ihnp4!convex!mcomp!doulos!wnp
  or   ihnp4!convex!mcomp!p40001
Phone: (214) 578-8023  W.U.ESL: 6283-2882

>I have read of two UNIX-like shells for the PC.  They are:
>  1. Dr. Dobb's Journal of Software Tools
>     501 Galveston Dr. - Redwood City, CA 94063 
>     Shell=$29.95; /util=$29.95; Both=$50.
>  2. Kent William - 722 Rundell St. - Iowa City, IA 52240
>     Donation=$25. - will send compiled version & "C" source
>I don't know anything about either of these two, other than what I read in
>an ad. Anyone have any experience? 

I recently got version 2.9 (I think) of Kent Williams' PC-SHELL off the
net.  I have a Zenith Z-100 computer, which runs MS-DOS, but is not
IBM-compatible (thank the local deity!).  In particular, I don't have
the IBM ROM BIOS interrupts.  Kent's documentation says that he has
re-written the screen-handling portions of his code to not use the IBM
screen interrupt.  Sure enough, PC-SHELL has no trouble talking to my
screen.  It didn't take long, however, to discover several problems that
have caused me to stop using PC-SHELL.

	The shell script stuff does not work.  It appears to get stuck
in a loop putting garbage on the screen.  I had to reboot to recover.
Maybe this works on a PC with PC-DOS.

	PC-SHELL cannot cooexist with the PRINT spooler.  In his (very
helpful) documentation, Kent notes that it gets "all hosed up".  Again,
I had to reboot when I tested this out.

	When I invoke my favorite editor, (BSE, from Zenith) it cannot
find the file I asked it to edit.  (??!?!)  I didn't take time to try to
figure this one out.

If it weren't for these problems, I would love to run Kent's shell.  The
alias and history stuff is really nice.

I don't know anything about the Dr. Dobbs shell.  Please post your
results.  Thanks.

Paul Allen

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Paul L. Allen
Boeing Computer Services Artificial Intelligence Center
...!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!paula