Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnewse!cwpjr
From: cwpjr@cbnewse.att.com (clyde.w.jr.phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Forth as an OS
Summary: clarification
Message-ID: <1991Jan3.195807.23244@cbnewse.att.com>
Date: 3 Jan 91 19:58:07 GMT
References: <9101031536.AA12680@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 46

In article <9101031536.AA12680@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM writes:
> > I'd like to see a "written-in-FORTH" clone of the popular OS's
> > ( UNIX/MS-DOG/MACH/etc ) where from the prompt you could use standard
> > dir/ls/cat/etc commands but all of the flag optional command line
> > arguments would be available as WORDS!
> 
> Who will buy it?
> 
> This isn't a theoretical question; I have such a thing.  One of my
> clients uses my Forthmacs system as the basis for a commercial
> medical imaging computer.  The DOS-compatible filing system is written
> in Forth, and the usual set of file manipulation commands (DIR, ls,
> DEL, rm, etc) are available as Forth words.  (I provide both DOS-style
> and Unix-style command names so people don't have to remember which
> system they are using at the particular time.)  The only command
> interpreter is the Forth text interpreter.
> 
> I have full rights to sell this operating system to anybody I want,
> but it would be folly to try to market it as a mass-market product.
> The computer industry has matured to the point where it takes many
> millions of dollars to promote a new operating system in the mass
> market.
> 
> I am not alone in having such technology; people have been doing
> Forth-based operating systems for years.
> 
> Mitch Bradley, wmb@Eng.Sun.COM

The arguments of "who will buy" and "it would be folly ( for who? ) to try
to market it" are valid for what you speak. I too have provided essentially
a simular system to clinical medical labs. They did not spark a rush
to use my system universally ( your's to huh! 8^) ).

But I did not mean that type of a system...

I mean essentially to parrallel the rise of RISC machines,
where say unix is "king". 

But a unix written in a modified FORTH ( Workstation Forth )
that ran on FORTH engines. Each login could get a shell FORTH, etc
Not just providing an equivalent 'ls'...

Again who would buy one? Since I'd like to see it, and I 've bought most
everthing else I like seeing....  8^)

--Clyde