Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!umich!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Personal OS Message-ID: Date: 30 May 90 23:22:48 GMT References: <402@newave.UUCP> <3300131@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <9437@pt.cs.cmu.edu> Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 18 The most complete personal O/S on a PC is AmigaOS. It's a tight message passing operating system with a small kernel. Scheduling is pre-emptive on a strict priority basis (i.e., real-time oriented). Intertask communication is via message queues allocated from a single heap, and via shared memory. The windowing system is fast and responsive, even on a 7.14 MHz 68000. The file system is a task under the kernel, and several file systems are available. The machine came with two: the Original File System, a disk-based system, and a Ram-disk that allocated files on the heap. The graphic user interface hasn't been as well-developed as on the Mac, but it's still better integrated than X. And since it doesn't depend on cooperation from the applications it's very fast: switching between applications is virtually instantaneous. The new GUI elements in AmigaOS 2.0 are much prettier: it looks like Motif without the speed penalty. Just to let people know that a personal operating system doesn't have to be limited, slow, or kludgy. -- `-_-' Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. 'U` Have you hugged your wolf today? @FIN Dirty words: Zhghnyyl erphefvir vayvar shapgvbaf.