From: "Matthias Paul" Organization: IBH, RWTH-Aachen To: opendos AT delorie DOT com Date: Mon, 7 Apr 1997 13:07:44 GMT+0100 Subject: Re: Multitasking Reply-to: Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de Message-ID: <49132935D4@ibh.rwth-aachen.de> 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Matthias Paul ! My eMail address has changed. For some time ! Ubierstrasse 28 ! mails to former ! D-50321 BRUEHL ! will be forwarded to the new address. ! eMail: WWW : URL: http://www.rhrz.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html ------------------------------------------------------------------