[geeks] shot in the dark - Coherent manual?

[Lionel Peterson]

On Jun 7, 2009, at 3:43 PM, Bill Bradford <mrbill at mrbill.net> wrote:

> On Sun, Jun 07, 2009 at 03:36:23AM -0400, Dave Fischer wrote:
>> mrbill at mrbill.net writes:
>>> I've got installation media and a serial number, but I'm looking  
>>> for a copy
>>> (scanned, physical, etc) of a manual for MWC (Mark Williams Co.)'s
>>> "Coherent" UNIX V7 clone.
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherent_(operating_system)
>> Had one - bought that new back in... 88? 89? Had a lot of fun doing
>> graphics work in 64K code + 64K data per process...
>> Or are you talking about the 386 version? (Coherent 4.x)
>
> Well, I have the manual for the 286 version, but the media I have is  
> for
> the 4.x version.
>
> I spent last night playing with (or trying to) Coherent 4.10.x (the  
> final
> version) and SCO Xenix/386 System V 2.3.4.  Unfortunately none of the
> current batch of emulators (VMWare Fusion, VirtualBox, Parallels,  
> Qemu)
> will work - they either don't provide correct floppy drive /IDE  
> emulation,
> or blow up/hang when the OSes want to switch into protected mode.
>
> I can run a pre-installed Xenix image that I found (someone made it  
> from an
> actual Xenix system on real hardware) but I can't install it from  
> scratch -
> it won't recognize the emulated IDE/SCSI controller and thinks there  
> are no
> HDs.

What about Virtual PC/Virtual Server from Microsoft? They run a lot of  
legacy OS (Win3.1, Win95, Win98 and WinME, for example)...

> The main problem with Coherent is proper floppy drive emulation.

I assume you are doing this on a Mac; a PC-based system with an actual  
floppy, either hard-wired or USB might fare better...

Lionel