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Re: on virtuality (was Re: VMWare)
Udi wrote:
> I wrote:
>
> >Not the first. The second. Locus (now owned by Platinum, the same
> >company which also "ate" Memco) was the first, with its revolutionary
> >version 4.0 (currently 4.1.1) of "Merge". Unfortunately, they didn't
>
> You are right.But wasn't Merge limited to running 16 Bit apps or O/S, hence
> staying in VM86 mode? if so, than it's not in the same league AT ALL. This is
> the same as the DOS box in ANY modern x86 protected OS.
This is why I so emphasized the version ("4.0"). older versions were
not revolutionary. The original "Merge", which confused you, was a
simple virtual 16bit, which is simple to virtualize under 386 and up,
and so ran only Win-3.11 and down. What I wrote about Prof. Popek
contradicting himself, referred to 4.0, in which he prooved that it
IS possible to have a real virtual 386 (and up), although not
conventionally, but with very smart tricks.
> The first I know to use self virtualization were IBM with the 360 or 370
> series. These mainframes run multiple O/S's simultanously with multiple VM's.
Contrary to Intel processors, the 390 (and maybe also 360/370) met
Popek's criterions for being self virtualizable, so it was very native
to have virtual machines under it.
> So you're saying that MERGE could run in theory a 32 bit O/S?
Not only in theory, but also practically. And not only COULD, but also
CAN. The new Unixware (7.1) which is released TODAY (yes, the one with
the Linux compatibility), runs it perfectly. Moreover, if you wanted to
run Linux and Win95 simultaneosly before yesterday, the only way was to
install Unixware, run Linux apps using "lxrun", and run Win95 using
Merge... (well, I think that you could do a similar thing under MacOS,
using VirtualPC to run Win95 and Linux...).
> Did it run
> Windows 95, or even Win3.1 with Win32S?
Not only "did"; It also DOES run all of them.
> When I first read about VMware in slashdot a month ago, it sounded like a
> hoax. It's one of these things that you "know" that can't be done. I'm glad I
> was proved wrong!
I heard about it 48 hours before it was published, but since I knew
Merge, I could believe easily. But I must admit that the quality of
VMware, even in an early stage like beta, surprised me.
--
Eli Marmor