I definitely didn't continue to use Coherent. As I recall, I installed each of the 3 systems successively on my XT (Pick, Coherent, and THEOS). That was about the time I got PC/IX from Interactive Systems (true System III), and that's what I went with.

At a trade show, I bought a utility that allowed me to run PC-DOS under PC/IX. I'm sure it wasn't a virtual machine. Rather, it just swapped back and forth. (Guessing a bit there.)

What Coherent and some other very early UNIX clones missed was the idea of open source, which came along later. This is what allowed Linux to thrive when others went by the wayside. But, nobody knew how to make any money from open source (and maybe still don't), so that would have been a problem back then.

As for my thoughts on the article: Reading it recently, it seems OK. I have no idea how one ought to go about reviewing an operating system. Certainly loading one up and playing with it for a couple of hours doesn't tell much. Using one exclusively for a long time doesn't tell one anything, either. I think reviews work better for movies, books, hotels, cameras, and things like that.

Marc