Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!pa.dec.com!decuac!hadron!lsw!gjc From: gjc@lsw.UUCP (Greg) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc Subject: Re: True Multitasking Summary: Same old, Same old Message-ID: <187@lsw.UUCP> Date: 9 Feb 91 20:25:18 GMT References: <42598@nigel.ee.udel.edu> <678@tnc.UUCP> Organization: LSW, Landover MD Lines: 28 In article , mwm@pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer) writes: > No - I'm simply stating a definition for the term "real computer". > Whether any particular machine meets the definition is immaterial. > On that note, all I am trying to say is that operating systems are written by people, people are fallable and therefore so are operating systems. By your definition quite a few of todays computers would not be real computers. For example... by using direct addressing I could erase all the memory locations in a Prime minicomputer/mainframe, or by moving a zero to a particular register (using a non-privileged account) you can crash a VAX/VMS minicomputer. And the list would go on and on... It would be very nice if a microcomputer operating system could accomplish this, but it would have to be *very* robust and have a high price. I am not refutinge the fact that there may be some OSs out there which are totally bulletproof, but I have yet to see one. BTW, you might consider saying "real operating system" since what you referred to in your first note was concerning the OS not the computer. Contrary to what you might think the OS has very little to do with the computer it's running on. A primary example of this would be UNIX which currently runs on DEC, Apple Mac, Amiga,some 386s, some 286s, etc. (Also BTW, UNIX is not bulletproof *by far* so I guess it's not a "real" operating system!)