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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!stolaf!umn-cs!isucs1!mcrware!kim
From: kim@mcrware.UUCP (Kim Kempf)
Newsgroups: net.micro.68k
Subject: Re: Re: Holy Holistic, Batman!  (OS-9 and the art of being holistic)
Message-ID: <157@mcrware.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 17-Nov-85 14:18:09 EST
Article-I.D.: mcrware.157
Posted: Sun Nov 17 14:18:09 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 21-Nov-85 05:20:23 EST
References: <576@sftig.UUCP> <1001@bnl44.UUCP> <11467@rochester.UUCP> <6140@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: Microware Systems Corp., Des Moines, IA
Lines: 30

> <6140@utzoo.UUCP> Henry Spencer:
>
> How about OS-9-sheltered?  Try to comprehend that Unix file systems do not
> have to use any particular storage technology; in particular, they do not
> need to be on disks.  It's easy to have them in RAM, almost as easy to have
> them in ROM.

And easy to change one of those beasts?  If device descriptors are to live in
ROM, there must be a way of updating them unless you are resigned to a static
system.  Also, can they be handled from ROM, RAM or disk simultaneously?

> Furthermore, Unix pipes do not have to be implemented as files
> at all -- that's just the way most Unixes happen to do them.  On the system
> I'm writing this on, pipes live in a little RAM filesystem; the resulting
> improvement in speed is substantial.  We haven't bothered bypassing the
> file machinery completely because we no longer have much incentive to.

Or have you had as much hacking on the pipes as you can stand?  I don't see
any reason pipe access should be tied to the filesystem in any manner other
than the "common access method".  To access the file systems only slows
things down.  Isn't speed the major concern of pipes? I suppose on high-power
hardware with CPU cycles to spare this isn't much of a concern.  The fewer CPU
cycles the kernel uses means more for the user programs.

----------------
Kim Kempf, Microware Systems Corporation

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