In article <1993Feb19.084647 at helix.nih.gov>, jip at helix.nih.gov (John Powell) writes:
|> >As I understand it, the major benefits of UNIX over VMS are as follows:
|> >(And I should stress that I am not an expert, just a concerned citizen)
|> >1] More flexible
|> >2] Smaller instruction set makes it faster
|> >3] Supports a graphical user interface
|>|> The biggest advantage of UNIX is it is NOT tied to a single venders platform.
|> UNIX runs on PC's, MAC's, Many Workstations, Supercomputers. Unfortunately,
|> it is not identical across platforms - there are user differances and
|> porting software may require some efford - BUT it is still MUCH easier than
|> moving from say MVS to VMS (or between any two completely differant OS's).
|>|>|> --
|> John Powell phone: (301) 496-2963
|> Building 12A, Room 2031 FAX: (301) 402-2867
|> National Institutes of Health uucp: uunet!jip%alw.nih.gov
|> Bethesda, MD 20892 Internet: jip at alw.nih.gov
...and because UNIX isn't tied to a single vendor or to a single system architecture,
resource sharing, file sharing, distributed processing and system-to-system connectivity are
issues greatly facilitated in the UNIX world, both in local installations and across the
globe via a well-connected Internet.
At the rate in which memory sizes and processing speeds are growing, platform-specific
characteristics, like "who's faster?", or, "which instruction set is better?" are giving way
to farther-reaching issues, like. "how can I share this information with the fellow down the
street?".
-Bob
