Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!dcl-cs!aber-cs!athene!pcg From: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Porting OSes (was DEC RISC Architecture) Message-ID: Date: 22 Oct 90 21:18:23 GMT References: <4462@trantor.harris-atd.com> <107038@convex.convex.com> <15007@hydra.gatech.EDU> <10734@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <3607@stl.stc.co.uk> <9110@fy.sei.cmu.edu> <1990Oct19.155917.24196@zoo.toronto.edu> Sender: pcg@aber-cs.UUCP Organization: Coleg Prifysgol Cymru Lines: 20 Nntp-Posting-Host: odin In-reply-to: henry@zoo.toronto.edu's message of 19 Oct 90 15:59:17 GMT On 19 Oct 90 15:59:17 GMT, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) said: henry> Actually, I think a more accurate version of the original statement would henry> be that the idea of porting an OS and getting something useful out of the henry> effort was novel. :-) Several groups had looked at it for systems that henry> were widely (although not always accurately) classed as toys. Unix gave henry> the idea credibility with a real-world system. I will never tire to repeat that the counterexample is neatly described in the August 1979 issue of SoftPract&Exp and in "The MU5 Computer System" by Ibbett & Morris, MacMillan. Read, read these and weep, thinking of what we would have now instead of SVR4/4.xBSD if we had started from MUSS and not from Unix V7 (a neat system for PDP-11s). Yet in a sense the greatest culprits are the authors of MUSS, who did not have appreciation of the politics of research, and of what it means to offer your system for free to any University who cares to ask. -- Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk