Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcrware!mwca!bill
From: bill@mwca.UUCP (Bill Sheppard)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: How wrong is MS-DOS?
Message-ID: <1779@mwca.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jan 91 18:33:09 GMT
References: <1991Jan02.035501.9457@iecc.cambridge.ma.us> <14900021@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com> <1991Jan6.183213.27136@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
Organization: Microware Systems Corp., Santa Clara, CA
Lines: 46

In article <1991Jan6.183213.27136@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> jap@convex.cl.msu.edu (Joe Porkka) writes:
>D*mn, I couldn't resist.
>
>If anybody wants to claim that MSDOS is good, especially considering
>*when* it came into existance, and the hardware it had to work on,
>I tell them to take a look at OS/9 on the RadioShack TRS-80
>ColorComputer.
>
>Preemptive multitasking, resource tracking, MultiUser, etc. etc.
>all in 64K of RAM on a 6809 processor. (No additional ROM either).
>
>Although the PC existed before OS/9 on the CoCo, OS/9 did exist
>before the CoCo, though I don't know exactly when or where or
>on what hardware previous to the CoCo.

OS-9 is still very much around - the 6809 version is (obviously) not finding
too many design wins, but OS-9/680x0 is a very widely used real-time OS.
OS-9/6809 was originally released in 1979, based on a 6800 kernel developed
in 1977. OS-9/68000 was released in 1983.

Code size is still small (especially compared to Unix), with a ~27K kernel,
a complete diskless embedded system would require ~40K of system code, ~60K
for a disk-based system, <256K for TCP/IP system. OS-9 is Unix-like, shares
many identical or similar system calls, but doesn't support virtual memory
(in keeping with real-time constraints). OS-9 has more OEM licensees than
Unix, and is embedded in hundreds of thousands of products and in use in
tens of thousands of PC's (including Mac's, ST's, Amiga's, Coco's, and PC's
with 680x0 add-in cards).

The story as I've been told is that IBM was highly interested in the 6809 for
the PC, but Motorola couldn't produce them in the quantity needed by IBM. Had
IBM chosen the 6809 then OS-9 would most probably have become what MS-DOS is
today (let me rephrase that - OS-9 would have become the standard PC operating
system, and probably made for much happier programmers and more powerful
applications given its multi-tasking, memory efficient design). On the other
hand, OS-9 has been chosen as the basis for Compact Disk Interactive, the new
CD standard about to be released to the consumer market by Philips, Sony, and
Matsushita, and may yet become as common in the home as MS-DOS is.

(Parts of this thread belong more suitably in alt.folklore, comp.realtime, and
 other various newsgroups, so take your pick!)
-- 
################################################################################
#  Bill Sheppard  --  bills@microware.com  --  {uunet,sun}!mcrware!mwca!bill   #
#  Microware Systems Corporation  ---  OS-9: Seven generations beyond __/_!!   #
#######Opinions expressed are my own, though you'd be wise to adopt them!#######