13 Mar
2024
13 Mar
'24
9:53 p.m.
Thanks. Fair enough. You mentioned PC/IX as *ISC's System III*
I'm not sure I ever ran ISC's System III port—only the V.3 port - which was
the basis for their ATT, Intel, and IBM work and later sold directly. I'm
fairly sure ISC also called that port PC/IX, but they might have added
something to say with 386 in the name—I've forgotten. [Heinz probably can
clarify here]. Anyway, this is likely the source of my thinking. FWIW: The
copy of PC/IX for the 386 (which I still have on a system I have not booted
in ages) definitely has VPIX.
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On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 11:28 AM Marc Rochkind <mrochkind(a)gmail.com> wrote:
@Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com>,
I don't remember what it was. But, the XT had an 8088, so certainly no 386
technology was involved.
Marc
On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 8:38 AM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
@Marc
On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 1:18 PM Marc Rochkind <mrochkind(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
--
*My new email address is mrochkind(a)gmail.com <mrochkind(a)gmail.com>*
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.)
Hmm ... you sure it was not either VPIX or DOS/Merge -- ISC built VPIX in
cooperation with the Phoenix Tech folks for PC/IX. I always bought a copy
with it, but it may have been an option. LCC did DOS/Merge originally as
part of the AIX work for IBM and would become a core part of OS/2 Warp
IIRC. Both Merge and VPIX had some rough edges but certainly worked fine
for DOS 3.3 programs. The issue tended to be Win and DOS graphics-based
programs/games that played fast and loose, bypassing the DOS OS interface
and accessing the HW directly. For instance, I never got the flight
simulator (Air War over Germany) for Dad's WWII plane (P-47 Thunderbolt) to
run under either (i.e., only under DOS directly on the HW. FWIW: In that
mode, Dad said the simulator flew a lot like how he remembered it).
Both Merge and VPIX used the 386 VM support and a bunch of work in the
core OS. Heinz would have to fill us in here. The version of the 386
port ISC delivered to AT&T and Intel only had the kernel changes to allow
the VM support for VPIX to be linked in, but it was not there. IICR (and
I'm not sure I am) is that Merge could run on PC/IX also, but you had to
replace a couple of kernel modules. It certainly would work on the AT&T
and Intel versions.
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