Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!menudo.uh.edu!sugar!peter From: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) Subject: Re: 8-bit death Message-ID: <1991May2.104907.25975@sugar.hackercorp.com> Organization: Sugar Land Unix -- Houston, TX References: <1991Apr28.162045.15585@daffy.cs.wisc.edu> <1991Apr30.112820.2451@sugar.hackercorp.com> <1991May2.012127.28779@daffy.cs.wisc.edu> Date: Thu, 2 May 1991 10:49:07 GMT In article <1991May2.012127.28779@daffy.cs.wisc.edu> dinda@cat53.cs.wisc.edu (Peter Dinda) writes: > As a young gentleman who is a hop, skip, and jump away from both > a BSEE and BSCS, who has programmed privately for DOS and DOS/Windows and > commercially (for IBM) for multithreaded OS/2, I take offense at your > personal insult. Being a gentleman, I will not return it in kind. That's OK, I'll take it as read. I think you've proved my point. You've so little experience with operating systems other than UNIX or DOS and derivitives that you don't understand what I'm getting at. > Umm, Intel, built the processors that OS/2 and DOS run on. I think they > have the right to name what the modes are! Sure they do, and they have every right to call their bank-select registers "segment" registers, even though they're crippled by comparison with real segments. And I have every right to point out that using them that way indicates a lack of experience. > Unlike something like a > PDP-11 or VAX-11, 286 and 386 machines provide four levels of protection - > not just a user and priveleged mode. Yes, and the Honeywell/GE machines Multics ran on provided what... 6 levels? > Sorry, the 8088 has a 16 bit ALU - most machines are characterized on > the basis of two things - the ALU and the Data Bus Widths. The 8088 has > an 8 bit Data Bus, but all internal processing is done 16 bits at a time. > The register pairs can be used either as full 16 bit registers, or split > in half to act as twice as many 8 bit registers. Uh, huh. And the 6809 (clearly an 8-bit machine) has a 16-bit ALU and an 8-bit data bus, 16-bit registers and PC. That makes it every bit as 16-bit as the 80x86 (x<2). The 1802 has an 8-bit ALU, 8-bit data bus, and 16 16-bit registers. But all three of these chips have the same limitations in their programming model: you can't point to more than 16 bits of address at a time. > Sorry, note by use of the word "even" - the system calls for CP/M were never > implemented as software interupts, now were they? Hey, UNIX system calls have been implemented as everything from call-gates to interrupts and illegal iunstruction traps. That doesn't mean that System V on a 68000 and System V on an 80386 are different operating systems. > And CP/M didn't provide > for Device Drivers did it? You didn't have to patch DOS 1.x to add new > devices! You have to re-link the kernel to add new devices in UNIX. So I guess by your logic it's an 8-bit O/S. After all, it's just the same as relinking CP/M (not patching, unless your vendor ripped you off and didn't give you a copy of BIOS.ASM). > Ah, yes. CP/M ran on something other than 8080 derivatives - good > urban legend. You can buy a 68000-based CP/M box today: it's called the Atari ST. > DOS stays around because its what users demand and buy. If > it were up to IBM and Microsoft, Intel based PCs would be using OS/2 right > now. Microsoft has abandoned OS/2, didn't you notice? (OS/2: bigger than UNIX and does half as much. Would *you* buy half an O/S?) > And with all your credentials you still have time to insult other readers > of comp.sys.amiga.advocacy. My My, you must be good. There, I know you couldn't resist trading insults after all. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' .