Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!van-bc!johna
From: johna@van-bc.UUCP (John Altstadt)
Newsgroups: comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: (Free) book on the Amoeba distributed system available
Message-ID: <274@van-bc.UUCP>
Date: 24 Mar 90 05:07:09 GMT
References: <6067@star.cs.vu.nl> <2604@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca>
Reply-To: johna@van-bc.UUCP (John Altstadt)
Organization: Wimsey Associates
Lines: 30

In article <2604@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca> utility@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Ronald BODKIN) writes:
>Sounds like Amoeba is quite close to QNX.  QNX also has the virtual machine,
>the same kernal design, the same high-speed features.  And QNX has years
>of a good track record.
>	Ron

I feel obligated to add to this...

1) QNX does not support anything other than the lowest common denominator
among the IBM PC (XT, AT, etc.) world, ie. no fast task switching via
the '386 instruction set.  The reason given by some of the implementors
at a trade show was that using '386 instructions wouldn't let them switch
to any other architecture (despite the fact that they were not overly
concerned with supporting any other architectures a year ago).  A large
model compiler has only just arrived for QNX within the last two months.

2) QNX does not come with source.

Otherwise, QNX is not a bad product (we use it for "real-time" process
control).

It would be interesting comparing Amoeba to QNX if the Amoeba net was
based around ARCNET (used by QNX) rather than ethernet (at least for '386
based machines).

Bravo for Andy, beating GNU at their own game.
-- 
John Altstadt, 6135 Carson St., Burnaby, B.C., CANADA, V5J 2Z8
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