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From: steve@bat.lle.rochester.edu (Steve Swales)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.sys.cdc
Subject: Re: NOS/VE
Summary: Not my first choice for OS of the decade.
Message-ID: <9595@ur-cc.UUCP>
Date: 22 Sep 90 19:54:53 GMT
References: <2410@lectroid.sw.stratus.com> <1990Sep22.041629.4634@robobar.co.uk>
Sender: news@uhura.cc.rochester.edu
Organization: UofR Laboratory for Laser Energetics
Lines: 72

In article <1990Sep22.041629.4634@robobar.co.uk> ronald@robobar.co.uk (Ronald S H Khoo) writes:
>cabbagehead@saturn.ucc.umass.edu (Chris Lloyd) writes:
>
>> Hey, anyone out there ever used NOS/VE?  Ive been using and programming
>> on it for the last year and a half and have found it totally awesome.
>
>You mean *awesomely slow* surely ?
>
>> Any comments?

I'm afraid I have to agree with that reply. In fact, if there were a
smiley face anywhere in the original post, I'd assume the person was
making a joke.

I've worked with a number of OS's over the years, and NOS/VE is, I'm
afraid, near (if not at) the bottom of my list for good features. I'm
pretty new to NOS/VE, and haven't beaten my brains out trying to fix
any of this, but here is my list of BAD (and GOOD) points.

BAD THINGS:
	1) It is (as pointed out) 'awesomely' slow when used interactively.
	2) The file naming scheme prevents using dots (e.g. for extensions)
		so virtually NOTHING is portable to/from other systems.
	3) No wildcards... the local CYBERMEN tell me this is not strictly
		true, but I haven't seen evidence to substantiate their
		claim. I was able to toggle together reasonable copies of
		basic file maintenance commands quite quickly using Cybil
		(not sure about the spelling of that) and later using C,
		but these things should be build in.
	4) All I/O seems to be geared exclusively for half duplex terminals
		or something. Specifically, nothing is accepted without
		a carriage return at the end. This makes writing things like
		'more' impossible, and makes what would be a quite reasonable
		editor utterly bizarre from anything but a CDC terminal.
	5) No 'SHOW USERS' or 'finger/who/w' type command that regular
		people have permission to run. I think this is build in,
		anyway. There is a command, but regular users cant run it.
		Maybe this is tunable, our CYBERMEN are rather conservative
		(they think MAIL is an unnecessary luxury!)

That's enough for me... it's already worse than MS-DOS or RT11.... UGH!

GOOD THINGS:
	1) It DOES have a fairly straightforward hierarchical directory
		structure... better than VMS anyway...and (i'll really go
		out on a limb here...) as good as MS-DOS :-(.
	2) It DOES have a really full command language... quite Algol-ish.
		But even this is a mixed blessing. Since you have to 'compile'
		it to do anything very interesting, you might as well have
		a 'dumber' command language, and use [insert favorite high-
		level language... C, in my case] for the more complex
		stuff, rather than inventing a whole new 'high-level'
		compiled language.
	3) I rather like the editor, now that i've figured out how to make
		the thing work... those carriage returns I mentioned above
		had me really confused for a while. Still, I like EMACS
		better.... and that runs everywhere but on the Cyber.

Now, I didn't use the Cyber until we switched to NOS/VE (from NOS), so
I dont know which is better, or whether any or all of these bad/good
points were there as well.... but, such as it is, this is my opinion of
NOS/VE.

-steve

--
-------------------------------------------------------+"Come, Watson, come!"
 Steve Swales                (716) 275-0265,-3857,-5101| he cried. "The game is
 steve@bat.lle.rochester.edu           (128.151.32.111)| afoot. Not a word!
 {decvax,harvard,ames,rutgers}!rochester!ur-laser!steve| Into your clothes and
 University of Rochester            250 East River Road| come!"		S.H.
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