Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!uc!nic.MR.NET!thor.acc.stolaf.edu!agnes!hopp From: hopp@agnes.uucp (Eric D. Hopp) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Relying on ARP Message-ID: <4247@thor.acc.stolaf.edu> Date: 7 Aug 89 16:00:16 GMT References: <12878@well.UUCP> <26758@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <20904@cup.portal.com> <26915@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <11107@polya.Stanford.EDU> Sender: news@thor.acc.stolaf.edu Reply-To: hopp@agnes.stolaf.edu () Distribution: na Organization: St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN Lines: 30 >On 4 Aug 89 06:55:23 GMT, >rokicki@polya.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki) said: > >Rokicki> I've always wanted to be able to fopen("|lpr", "w"), for >Rokicki> instance, to spool things automatically, or anything else >Rokicki> with pipes. Why hasn't any operating system (that I know of) >Rokicki> allowed file names to also specify new processes? I mean, I >Rokicki> can open `par:' or `ser:' or even `speak:'. Just a thought. As I read this thread, I couldn't help but think of UNIX version 9. Since version 7 was released to the world, the people at Bell Labs who originally developed UNIX have kept on tinkering, with some really nice results. I was only able to take a short look at the version 9 manual, but it looks like version 9 is very well designed. One nice feature is the ability to mount nearly *anything* in the file system. This includes pipes and processes. (I. E., run your debugger on /proc/8973.) I take this to mean that one could have a "| lpr" whose input end was "/pipe/lpr". Version 9 has a lot of other neat things, but this is probably the wrong place to discuss them. I've said all I know, so if you'd like to know more, find a copy of the version nine manual, the proper issues of AT&T's "Bell Labs technical journal" (Is that name right?), or ask in the proper news groups. If you appreciate beautiful system architecture, I think it's worth looking at. -eric hopp hopp@stolaf.edu (St. Olaf College)