From root Sun Jan 31 06:18:23 1993 Received: from VM.TCS.TULANE.EDU by silver.sdsmt.edu (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA30186; Sun, 31 Jan 1993 06:17:15 -0700 Message-Id: <9301311317.AA30186@silver.sdsmt.edu> Received: from TCSVM.BITNET by VM.TCS.Tulane.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R1) with BSMTP id 8131; Sun, 31 Jan 93 07:12:03 CST Received: from TCSVM.BITNET by TCSVM.BITNET (Mailer R2.08) with BSMTP id 8889; Sun, 31 Jan 93 07:12:02 CST Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1993 14:12:56 EST Reply-To: INFO-UNIX%BRL.ARPA@VM.TCS.Tulane.EDU Sender: Info-Unix distribution list From: PETER FABIAN Subject: COHERENT To: Multiple recipients of list I-UNIX Status: R Few days ago I asked Mark Williams for info about COHERENT. Here is their info-sheet about Coherent 4.0 Peter MARK WILLIAMS ANNOUNCES COHERENT 4.0: A 32-bit version that is binary compatible with many iBCS2 compliant programs NORTHBROOK, Illinois, -- COHERENT 4.0 is a 32-bit version of Mark Williams Company's $99.95 UNIX-compatible operating system. COHERENT 4.0 is the successor to COHERENT 3.2, which has sold over 40,000 units since its release in May of 1990. Designed for individual as well as small business users, COHERENT 4.0 improves upon the foundation laid by earlier versions. Foremost among COHERENT 4.0's new features is its ability to run COFF binaries which run on many other PC UNIX systems, such as The Santa Cruz Operation's (SCO) SCO UNIX System V/386 Version 3.2.2, a licensee of AT&T's System V UNIX. The ability to run System V COFF binaries gives COHERENT users access to the vast software libraries of other PC UNIX vendors. ``We should be able to run many System V 386 binaries, and they should, likewise, be able to run many of ours,'' says Robert Swartz, President of Mark Williams Company. Makes UNIX accessible: Smaller, Simpler, Affordable The entire distribution consists of six floppy disks and installs in less than 1 hour, considerably less time than PC UNIX's, such as SCO V.3.2.2 which contains 25 disks. COHERENT's installation is simpler than SCO's. According to Mr. Swartz, ``We are the first truly plug and play UNIX. You no longer have to ship an engineer in every box.'' Moreover, COHERENT uses resources more efficiently and can run on machines where UNIX cannot, such as a 386SX with 1 MB of RAM. COHERENT is faster than SCO. On the Byte C Compiler Benchmark, COHERENT outperforms SCO UNIX 3.2.2 almost three to one. In tests run on a 25 MHZ 486, COHERENT's C compiler performed over 85 compiles per minute, while SCO's managed only 31. Other features that make COHERENT accessible are its manual and size. COHERENT's 1200 page manual enables users to find things considerably faster than users who have to search through SCO's 14 manuals. Furthermore, COHERENT's operating and development environment requires less than 10 MB of hard disk space and the kernel is around 100K. In contrast, SCO requires more than 40 MB and SCO's kernel is around 400K. A complete UNIX environment COHERENT 4.0's development tools include an optimizing C compiler, a new optimizing linker, and versions of lex, yacc, awk, make as well as termcap, terminfo, and curses. COHERENT 4.0 also comes with a new 386 macro- assembler. The assembler is fully documented and supports conditional assembly, listings, and assembly time variables. After porting their Fortran to C translator, PROMULA.FORTRAN, to COHERENT 4.0, Promula Development Corporation's Fred Goodman said, ``... I am very impressed at how easily this went -- the entire port required less than four hours.'' Other software packages that already run on COHERENT 4.0 include: Basis International's BBxProgression/3, Gimpel Software's FlexeLint 4.0, and Acucobol, Inc.'s ACUCOBOL-85. COHERENT 4.0 also contains versions of the traditional UNIX text processing utilities nroff and troff, along with support for LaserJet(PCL) and PostScript. These utilities are not available in other PC UNIX releases. For communication between machines, COHERENT comes with UUCP, ckermit, and kermit. COHERENT's administrative commands include several archiving utilities, a Bourne shell, a Korn shell, System V style cron, virtual console support, on-line manual pages and many of the popular Berkeley utilities. A COHERENT--$99.95 vs. SCO UNIX--$2590 COHERENT breaks the $100 price barrier Mark Williams Company plans to attract VAR's and individuals by offering them an inexpensive operating system with the features and functionality of UNIX. ``Because of its $99.95 price tag and minimal system requirements, COHERENT is ideal for small business and individual users who want an affordable, yet powerful multi-user operating system,'' says Mr. Swartz. Market research shows that COHERENT will succeed in the marketplace because it targets the much larger small business and individual markets instead of the small workstation market. Citing research, Mr. Swartz declared, ``Examine the UNIX marketplace. Workstations and GUI's have the sizzle and are glamorous, but they are not what most UNIX users are buying. The average small business PC UNIX runs a third party application package, such as Basis International's BBxProgression/3, and supports six to ten terminals. For the VAR's that supply these businesses, price, support, simplicity, reliability, and ease-of-use are the features that count.'' Mark Williams Company believes that COHERENT 4.0 is the affordable UNIX alternative that provides users with everything except UNIX's price, complexity, and size. Like its predecessors, COHERENT 4.0 comes complete with program development, text processing, communications and administrative tools. PC Week's William Zachmann says that ``...for a mere hundred bucks...[COHERENT] may be the best thing that has happened to UNIX yet...'' And UNIX Today's Sean Fulton's reaction was, ``I can't believe it's not UNIX.'' Supports most PC platforms COHERENT 4.0 runs on 386 and 486 based IBM AT compatible computers. SCSI host adapters from Adaptec, Seagate, and Future Domain are supported, as are IDE, RLL, MFM, ESDI and Perstor hard disk controllers. COHERENT 4.0 requires a minimum of 1MB of RAM and will support systems with up to 64MB of RAM. It works with monochrome, CGA, EGA, Hercules, and VGA displays. The Unique Newsletter's Tim Parker believes that COHERENT is a serious UNIX system which will see rapid growth. Mark Williams Company Director of Marketing Jay Alter couldn't agree more. ``Now that we have a 32-bit version that breaks the 64K barrier, we have received commitments from many applications vendors to port their products to COHERENT. In addition, we have an incredibly active and sophisticated user base that continues to grow. Over 40MB of public domain source code has already been posted to our BBS.'' Free support, Unlimited User License, Complete Documentation -- $99.95 Mark Williams Company continues to make every effort to keep the price of COHERENT down and to provide customers with maximum value. COHERENT 4.0 costs $99.95. This price includes unlimited free technical support, an unlimited user license, and a 1200 page manual. Registered users can upgrade to COHERENT 4.0 from COHERENT 3.x for $59.95. COHERENT 4.0, and the COHERENT 4.0 update, are available from the Mark Williams Company, 60 Revere Drive, Northbrook, IL 60062. Phone:1-800-627-5967 or 1-708-291- 6700. Fax: 1-708-291-6750. Electronic Mail: sales@mwc.com International COHERENT Distributors Country Distributor Phone Number ------- ----------- ------------ Australia Space Age Import Export 61-7-266-2270 Brazil LASoft 55-11-280-6405 Carribean ESS 809-723-5000 Czechoslovakia MISS s.p.o.l. 42-632-62877 Denmark Ravenholm 45-42-887-249 England Microway 44-81-541-5466 Finland Ravenholm 358-41-871-871 France Future Soft 33-14-672-8074 France Algane Informatique 33-1-4741-4519 Germany eMedia 49-51-153-7295 Germany Verlag Heinz Heise 49-511-535-2186 Hungary BECO 36-1-117-3888 Malaysia Unidata S.B. 60-3-756-4477 Sweden Relux 46-660-19290 Venezuela ESS 809-723-5000 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ COHERENT reviews: Aug '92 BYTE, 10-26-92 Open Systems Today, Feb '93 UNIXWorld ******************************************* * Peter Fabian * * Agricultural Biotechnology Center * * Institute for Biochemistry * * Godollo, p.o.box 170, 2101-HUNGARY * * phone :(36) 28-20095 * * fax :(36) 28-30338 * * e-mail: fabian@abc.hu * * bitnet : pfabian@hugirk51.bitnet * * psi address: psi%021612802628::fabian * ******************************************* .