Mail Archives: opendos/1997/04/07/07:11:54
On Mon, 07 Apr 1997, ark AT mpak DOT convey DOT ru wrote:
> > >From what I have read concerning Real/32 is that it is not nor will
> > it be free, so this is kind of a moot point.
> >
> It is not. But Real/32 is a DR CDOS derivative. So such a system could
> be free - if Caldera wanted it to be.
I have not yet seen REAL/32 working, but from what they tell on their
page, it looks quite great. However, I have seen their competitors
CCI Multiuser DOS 7.22 Gold, which also derived from DR Multiuser
DOS 5.1, after Novell discontinued support for this OS in 1993.
On CCI's web site, you can download a demo version for free
(interestingly, it's build date was 1997-02-10). I have been told,
that CCI Multiuser DOS and IMS Multiuser DOS (since v7.50+ now called
REAL/32) once had the same code base, but are now been developed in
different directions (and that REAL/32 was in advance concerning
CCI Multiuser DOS 7.22, which I assume also from reading both specs).
I was impressed by the flexibility of Multiuser DOS' configuration,
while the DOS compatible kernel at it's best could be compared with
that of DR DOS 5.0 - 6.0 (before the "business update"). So, Novell
DOS and OpenDOS are much in advance concerning support of MS-DOS API's
including undocumented data structures, but Multiuser DOS is in
advance concerning the flexiblity of the multitasker. Unfortunately,
you will get much more DOS applications to run under OpenDOS than
under Multiuser DOS, since it lacks so much in it's DOS compatibility.
Also, the NWDOS/OpenDOS utility set is far beyond from what I found in
CCI Multiuser DOS 7.22. I don't know, if this changed with REAL/32
(at least for REAL/32, Novell copyrights go up to 1996, and their
IMSCDEX.EXE driver is a derivation of NWCDEX.EXE 1.00, maybe more
parts of early Novell DOS implementations could be found in there).
However, from playing with Multiuser DOS, one can learn alot about
the implementation of the single-user multitasking and other issues
of OpenDOS. And, if Caldera will someday open the sources of
DR Multiuser DOS (as they announced), after some examination, it
should be rather easy to merge a multiuser version from what OpenDOS
has become since than and what we could use or learn from old
DR Multiuser DOS sources.
Currently, I am in the process to merge/convert/reformat a more
handy REAL/32 API documentation for Ralf Brown's interrupt list
from the original IMS' REAL/32 documentation. I don't know, how long
it will take before it shows up in INTERxx (at least some months), so
I could perhaps make a preliminary version available on my web-site
if there is a demand for it. What's most interesting, comparing
the REAL/32 API with the OpenDOS multitasker documentation, although
they are rather different in there API calls, we can learn alot about
the OpenDOS multitasker, since both use very similar techniques
(which is not so astonishing after all)... ;-)
Oh yes - before I forget -, I have included pointers to both of them
(IMS and CCI) in my web-page. There has also been another Multiuser
Master VAR in Australia, does anyone know the name of this company,
and if actually a third line of Multiuser DOS exists in the market???
Bye,
Matthias
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