Unix: Only a Programmer Could Love It
When telephone giant AT&T; decided to enter the computer business about three years ago, there was a lot of speculation about whether Unix could someday rival MS-DOS as the most popular operating system for personal computers.
It hasn’t happened yet.
Now, with the advent of new-generation personal computers using the powerful 32-bit Intel 80386 microprocessor chip and Apple’s brawny new Macintosh II with its 32-bit Motorola 68020 microprocessor, once again there are predictions that Unix is coming.
Should you care?
Thinking about computer operating systems is a lot like thinking about the transmission, axles and brakes of a car--important parts, to be sure, but not very sexy.
An operating system handles all the mundane stuff of computing, such as managing the file storage on disks, making sure that the user’s keystrokes are displayed on the monitor and directing the proper streams of data to the printer or the modem at the correct time.
Comparing Unix to MS-DOS/PC-DOS, the system used in IBM PCs and its compatibles, is like comparing a nice single-family home to a large luxury hotel. MS-DOS is a single-user, single-task system. Basically, one person can run one program at a time.
Unix is a multi-user, multitask system. Depending on the equipment, many users can run many programs at one time. And, like a hotel, it takes up a lot of space, both in disk storage for the hundreds of Unix systems files and in the minimum of one megabyte of RAM operating memory required to use it.
Unix, created by Bell Labs and licensed for a nominal fee to colleges and universities, began as a minicomputer operating system in which users worked at so-called dumb terminals linked to a host computer, where all the programs and files were stored.
As PCs have gained faster microprocessors, more RAM operating memory and greater disk storage capacity, they have gained exactly the features needed to run Unix.
About a year ago, AT&T; introduced the PC 6300 Plus, which can run both Unix and MS-DOS. It does so with a special Unix program called Simul-Task, written by Locus Computing of Santa Monica. Simul-Task allows MS-DOS to operate as one of the multiple tasks that can be performed under Unix, and it transfers text files between the two systems. It also allows you to run up to seven Unix programs simultaneously.
There is no question that Unix is so much more powerful than MS-DOS that it’s like comparing a Kawasawki Ninja motorcycle to a balloon-tired Schwinn bicycle. It also is at least that much more difficult to operate. (AT&T; offers its Unix customers a one-week course of instruction to get them started.)
The simple truth of Unix is that it was written by computer programmers for computer programmers, and only a computer programmer could love it. The rest of us need to have Unix hidden from us by a slick application program that makes it easy to use. All we want to do is get our jobs done. If the computer makes it easier to do that, hurray. If it means we have to go back to school, it’s just not going to happen in many cases.
Unix can handle communications among computers, and it is well structured to create multi-user database applications using just the commands available in Unix. You don’t need a dBase III to do the job, but you do need a Unix programmer to set it up.
While the MS-DOS world is content to subsist on rumors of a new version of the operating system that will allow multitasking on AT-type computers--someday--you can do that today with Unix on a 6300 Plus. And you could have done it a year ago, too.
Now, just to add to the confusion, let me mention the word Xenix. That’s the name that Microsoft (the same folks who gave us MS-DOS) use for their competing version of the Unix operating system. And their version has been a whole lot more popular than AT&T;’s Unix, from which it was originally licensed and developed. Recently the two companies agreed to merge their two systems into a single version to run on the new 80386 computers.
That may be the step that Unix/Xenix needs to compete with MS-DOS, because it will be able to take full advantage of the power of those new high-performance computers sooner than a new version of MS-DOS can be created. But don’t rush out to buy a computer with Unix (or Xenix).
Unfortunately for the Unix world, there has not yet been the equivalent of a WordStar or a Lotus 1-2-3, a program that so nicely meets the needs of a broad range of users that it becomes a popular standard.
Instead, many Unix applications are custom or semicustom programs written and/or sold by small companies that specialize in serving some particular niche of the business world.
Maybe it’s a package that helps pharmacists keep track of their pills or helps lawyers write their briefs. You’ll find it advertised in the journals of your trade, or hear about it from a colleague, or get a flyer on it in the mail, or see it exhibited at a trade show.
The way to get into Unix is not to go to it. Instead, let it come to you in an application that makes it easier to conduct your business. Maybe it won’t be a Unix application. Maybe it will be an MS-DOS application. It shouldn’t matter. Let the program developers worry about what system is best suited to the task.
Computer File welcomes readers’ comments but regrets that the author cannot respond individually to letters. Write to Richard O’Reilly, Computer File, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, Calif. 90053.
