#: 3504 S15/Hot Topics
    15-May-90  00:10:09
Sb: #3499-#OS9 A/O Uniflex???
Fm: Steve Sampson N5OWK 75136,626
To: Mike Knudsen 72467,1111 (X)

Not better, but designed differently.  RT OSK designs can be put together
without a disk, while UniFlex needs a Hard Disk.  It swaps processes to memory
and/or the hard disk.  OSK just uses RAM and doesn't swap.  This can be a plus
in many applications.  My old UniFlex always swaps.  Even if I have enough
memory.  It's basically just running procs in a 512Kb max space, and using the
rest of memory (1.5meg) as the swap device (software memory management). 
Equipped with a 68030 you can run virtual memory and forget all that garbage. 
I want to port Minix to mine and get basically the system that OSK uses - out
of memory? tough!  The C compiler/Assembler are very good on the UniFlex
machine.  I documented a couple of bugs, but they are easy to work around.  One
feature it says I'm supposed to have is a Unix switch on the C compiler.  As it
is UniFlex uses a CR rather than a LF, and that messes alot of stuff up.  The
switch doesn't work though (the required library is probably an option $$). 
The other thing I hate is that it uses a '+' for command line options, rather
than a '-' like normal.  This causes you to have to use the shift key to get
at.  It's probably cheaper to buy a 386 with 'real' Unix than get UniFlex
software by itself.  It's very expensive with the RT and Virtual Mem options. 
Unless they had a big price reduction.

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