Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: OS/2 is dead? Message-ID: <3083@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> Date: 21 Dec 90 15:26:30 GMT References: <28775@usc> <14887@ogicse.ogi.edu> <3078@canisius.UUCP> <38@ns.UUCP> Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY Lines: 32 In article <38@ns.UUCP> bob@ns.UUCP (Robert J. Mathias) writes: | In general the OS/2 programming environment is much richer than Unix when | attempting to do real-time applications. The use of threads and DLLs makes | life alot easier. Unix's 1 second resolution for delays is not adequate. Sounds like when you say UNIX you mean BSD. V.3.2 and V.4 have nap() in ms resolution. And I think BSD does fine resolution thru select(), although I don't have the man page handy. V.4 has some support for real time, other than the kernel being more preemptable, I don't have the right manuals handy. I haven't tried doing any r/t on it yet. Anything you saw about the need for threads or other lightweight process implementations sounds like the right idea, although I might want to discuss the interface. I have done a lot of hacks to get the effect of threads, with mixed results and poor portability. Maybe POSIX should get into this area. | I believe that I would not have any complaints with Mach-based Unix's, since | it adds OS/2 features like threads and has better real-time support. I agree with the need for the features, but I'm not sure that Mach is the best solution. I'm waiting to see how various implementations work over the next few years before forming an opinion. It may be that the ideas from mach and other versions will be used to do another implementation. For evaluating the usefulness of an o/s implementation, no amount of research can substitute for some solid experience in production use (and vice versa, of course). -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) VMS is a text-only adventure game. If you win you can use unix.