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From: braner@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (braner)
Newsgroups: net.micro.atari16
Subject: Re: "progress" in operating systems...
Message-ID: <1097@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU>
Date: Wed, 24-Sep-86 22:58:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: batcompu.1097
Posted: Wed Sep 24 22:58:28 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Sep-86 20:33:29 EDT
References: <8609240330.AA15054@mitre-bedford.ARPA>
Reply-To: braner@batcomputer.UUCP (braner)
Organization: Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY
Lines: 32
Summary: Right on!

[]

I sure agree with John: memory is being squandered uselessly!
That 4K screen-editor for the Apple II I mentioned is rather complete
(no multiple windows, though).  I read about a utility for Apple Pascal
(on the Apple II) that reminds one of Sidekick in what it does.  It eats
all of about 5K - Sidekick gobbles between 26 and over 100K, depends on
what parts of it are installed.  Why? because it was written for a 640K
machine, sloppily.  People will tell me that we will want "real" EMACS
and graphic-UNIX on our personal machines when they finally have 2
Megabytes (4 ?).  What for?  Use the RAM (even part of the 1 Meg space
we have now) for an intelligent, transparent disk caching scheme at
the OS level, and (with one floppy) it will put hard disks to shame!
Instead of silly BASIC environments with 17 windows (edit in one, list
in another, etc.) - let us have an incrementally compiled BASIC (or C,
or Pascal)!  An incrementally-compiling environment needs RAM for many
things: source, executable code, variables (that remain intact while
you modify source and continue running!), compiler, editor/lister/decompiler
(or whatever that is), library routines, and (yes) a graphics screen.
THAT'S what RAM is for!  (HBASIC actually compiles at edit time and
DECOMPILES at list/re-edit time. So fast, though, that you don't notice.
At run time, it RUNS! 2000 times faster than BASICA (sieve benchmark)!
THAT'S what a 16/32 bit processor is for!   Did you hear of the brand-name
"supermini" that serves many users simultaneously with a famous OS,
but performs floating point operations a lot slower than Applesoft BASIC?
(That's a true story, but the company that made it is so big I'd rather
not mention them by name :-)

- Moshe Braner

Peter's principle of computer engineering:
	Software will expand to fill the memory allotted.