Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!olivea!tymix!cirrusl!sunstorm!dhesi From: dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com (Rahul Dhesi) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Sun's Competitive Strategy (Was: Re: P1754 Message-ID: <2787@cirrusl.UUCP> Date: 9 Dec 90 00:43:05 GMT References: <1635@unix386.Convergent.COM> <1990Dec2.014554.3491@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <2760@cirrusl.UUCP> <1990Dec07.194407.29083@digibd.com> Sender: news@cirrusl.UUCP Organization: Cirrus Logic Inc. Lines: 18 In <1990Dec07.194407.29083@digibd.com> rhealey@digibd.com (Rob Healey) writes: > My Color Computer 3 running OS/9 costs about $400.00 > and can put a PC to shame in most cases. It runs an "obsolete" > Motorola 6809E 8 bit processor and is a VERY useful system! Actually the point made is a good one. The Motorola 6809 was very carefully designed to allow position-independent code. As a result, a UNIX-like OS (OS9), which can create multiple processes without memory-management hardware, was easy to write for this CPU. OS9 deserves more attention than it gets. It's a pity IBM didn't pick the 6809 (maybe it came after the 8086?) All this is, of course, irrelevant if you're talking about Mac Classics. -- Rahul Dhesi UUCP: oliveb!cirrusl!dhesi