Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mtxinu!ed
From: ed@mtxinu.COM (Ed Gould)
Newsgroups: comp.os.mach
Subject: Re: Mach as a Virtual Machine
Keywords: virtual machine - mach - design - architecture
Message-ID: <1991Apr17.042700.2568@mtxinu.COM>
Date: 17 Apr 91 04:27:00 GMT
References: <1991Apr16.133805.28465@ulowell.ulowell.edu>
Reply-To: ed@mtxinu.COM (Ed Gould)
Distribution: na
Organization: mt Xinu, Berkeley
Lines: 21

>I am trying to answer this question:

>	"Is Mach a virtual machine software?"

>On another hand, if one think of a virtual machine as a  piece of
>software which allow to run different operating systems in it, the
>answer can be yes.  Mach's designers claim Mach has, or offers the
>possibility to implement several operating systems on top of it [3-4].

Even in this sense, Mach does not present any more of a "virtual
machine" than does any other operating system.  The Mach 3.0
facilities don't implement any of the OS *interfaces* that we're
currently used to, but they provide a way to implement those
interfaces.  In that sense, Mach provides a virtual machine.  So
does every other OS, albeit a different one for each OS.

-- 
Ed Gould			No longer formally affiliated with,
ed@mtxinu.COM			and certainly not speaking for, mt Xinu.

"I'll fight them as a woman, not a lady.  I'll fight them as an engineer."