ESIX 4.0

[Evan Leibovitch]

In article <1991Apr15.231949.4760 at Topsail.ORG> cmurcko at Topsail.ORG (Chuck Murcko) writes:
>Many or most of us who have ordered it are still waiting. ESIX hasn't
>shipped yet. The last date they told my dealer was 3rd week April. He & I
>both agreed that meant mid-May. Apparently, ESIX ships new products all
>at once instead of trickling them out. Maybe there's a beta tester out
>there who could shed some light on this?

There has been, in this group, an abundance of speculation about the
pricing, features, and upgrade pricing regarding the System V Release 4
version of ESIX.

As a prime ESIX dealer in Canada, we received a lengthy fax recently
which describes the ESIX 4.0 product.

I will try to keep this as informative, accurate and hype-free as
possible.  However, if you are offended by even mildly commercial
postings, please press 'n' now.


AVAILABILITY:

Everex's Canadian office says they'll be shipping me my first copies of
ESIX 4.0 the first week of May, well in time for us to debut it at the
Canadian UNIX show in mid-month. They won't commit to that ship date in
writing :-), but say the R&D folk in Santa Ana are ready for that deadline.
The Beta tests are apparently over.

PRICING: (U.S. list - Canadian pricing coming soon)

                      With printed    No printed
                      documentation   documentation

2 user runtime            765             600  
2 user w/development     1205            1040  
unlimited runtime        1425            1095
unlimited w/development  1865            1595

A few noteworthy points:

1) Many vendors, including us, sell ESIX below list price;

2) Though the increase appears steep, note that this price now
   includes the Motif GUI and NFS, which were both extra cost options
   with ESIX r3.2.

3) On-line documentation will be supplied with all the above variants.
   The printed documentation will be similar to the UNIX Press (Prentice
   Hall) SysVr4 set.


UPGRADES:

My information here is a little sketchier, but there is definitely an
upgrade path for current owners of ESIX 3.2. I believe the upgrade
pricing is being set in such a way that the cost of 3.2 PLUS the cost of
the upgrade is just slightly less than the cost of buying 4.0 new.

The ballpark on the upgrade from 3.2 unlimited development to 4.0 is
about $650. Check with the dealer who sold you 3.2.


FEATURES:

(Note: ESIX 4.0 carries over all the features of generic UNIX Release 4, as
well as ESIX release 3.2. This is a minimal list, and may include features
which are available in releases of V4 from other vendors):

X Windows Version 11.4, with support for both Open Look and Motif 1.1.
Graphics adaptors supported by ESIX 3.2 are supported in 4.0, as well as
monochrome Hercules adapters and graphics cards based on the TI 34010.
X11/NeWS is also included;

SLIP support is provided over COM1: and COM2:;

Full BSD socket (as well as System V TLI) libraries;

As mentioned, on-line man pages (*not* in troff source form);

TCP/IP, RFS, and NFS;

OA&M system administration software;

Support for SCSI, ESDI, IDE, RLL and MFM drives;

The ANSI C compiler generates either COFF or ELF binary formats;


MINIMUM INSTALLATION REQUIREMENTS:

80386sx, 30386 or 80486 system
4 Meg RAM                      (8 if using X Windows)
>60 Meg Hard Disk              (>100 Meg if using X Windows)

The floppy distribution, I'm told, comes on more than 100 diskettes.
ESIX is moving towards using QIC-60 cartridges whenever possible.

That's it for now. If you want any more, send mail.

-- 
   Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario
         evan at telly.on.ca / uunet!attcan!telly!evan / (416) 452-0504
"Americans think they drink beer but it's only Budweiser - the Tang of Beers"