V.4 & Mach Update

[Peter da Silva]

In article <1990Aug7.222716.7957 at ico.isc.com> rcd at ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes:
>   How much do you think a 386 Mach or other system with a BSD-like inter-
>   face ought to cost?  What's the max price that would make sense?

This is two questions:

	How much do you think a 386 Mach ought to cost?

If it's reliable and compatible with System V/386, probably on the order
of $1000 (50% more than ESIX, anyway) on up. Otherwise, about the same.

The max price would be 10% or so more than V.4, so $2200 or so.

	How much do you think a 386 system with a BSD-like interface
	ought to cost?

About half a 386 system with a System V interface, unless it's *in
addition* to the System V stuff or has an equivalently good system
admin package. Standard BSD system administration hasn't improved
any since V7 days.

>   Would you pay more for a BSDish system than for Sys V?  About how much,
>   as a percentage?

-50%

>   Would you pay more (or less?:-) for Mach, _per_se_?

50% more.

>   Why?  (e.g., "cause I like it" or portability or particular features...)

It's an overall better design, and allows real asynchronous I/O instead of
polled I/O like in BSD and System V.

>   How would something like this stack up against a V.4 system?

It'd still be better, even if it didn't include X or TCP. Mach is just a
better design.

>   How much difference should there be for 1-2 user vs unlimited?  (That
>   sort of asks what you'd use it for and how valuable a many-user setup
>   might be?)

I wouldn't consider a real 1-2 user license (i.e., one you couldn't
trivially ignore) worth getting.

>   What are the things that would have to be there?...

A real multi-threaded UNIX on top of Mach... none of this "UNIX as an
application program" stuff. Decent system admin tools.

For work, TCP is essential. For home, I wouldn't care.

>   ought to be there?...

Loadable personality modules, so if you don't care about full System V
or BSD bugs... I mean features... you don't have to burn RAM on them.

>   would be nice?

Man pages, ksh, X, TCP.
-- 
Peter da Silva.   `-_-'
+1 713 274 5180.   'U`
<peter at ficc.ferranti.com>