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From: nfc@decvax.UUCP (Norman Commo)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: Comments on OS-9 anyone?
Message-ID: <198@decvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 9-Sep-83 06:28:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: decvax.198
Posted: Fri Sep  9 06:28:06 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 9-Sep-83 20:21:42 EDT
References: <29@princeton.UUCP>
Organization: DEC UNIX Engineering Group, Merrimack, NH
Lines: 24


I have been using OS-9 for over a year now on a home brew 6809 system.
It seems to run fairly well.  The description of it that I would feel
most comfortable with is "having a UNIX feel".  Yes, it does have I/O
redirection and piping, but there are some uglies when you forget and
try to use . and .. in path names etc.  Also, there's no wild carding.

Still, it runs nice on the micro because it didn't try to be a close
UNIX clone.  It is written in assembler to keep modules small.  I/O 
and files are stream, so look alike to the programmer, which is nice.
Unlike FLEX, OS-9 imposes no formatting on files.  Just like UNIX, you
have a byte stream with nothing changed or filtered as you read the
stream.

Conclusion.  I feel that it is much more sophisticated than FLEX but
can be a lot more exasperating in use.  Their Basic09 is really nice
(if your into that schtick).  Their C compiler is fine, but requires
big memory, and you would most likely have to leave out the piping
modules if you want to run it.

Norm Commo
decvax!nfc