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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!clyde!watmath!csc
From: csc@watmath.UUCP (Computer Sci Club)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Some thoughts
Message-ID: <4742@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 1-Feb-87 16:56:28 EST
Article-I.D.: watmath.4742
Posted: Sun Feb  1 16:56:28 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Feb-87 23:07:53 EST
References: <17128@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <1324@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP>
Reply-To: csc@watmath.UUCP (c/o Computer Sci Club)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 49
Keywords: AmigaDOS, MINIX, UNIX, GNU

In article <17128@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> robinson@shadow.berkeley.edu
(Mike Robinson) writes:
>
>So my idea, the point of all this, is to make AmigaDOS look like UNIX.  If
>MINIX can look like UNIX, there should be no real reason why AmigaDOS can't.
>If this were done, one would have all the advantages of MINIX (except source
>to the kernel), without all the disadvantages.  Unix and AmigaDOS software
>living and running side-by-side in the same environment.
>
>It seems to me that the only thing necessary for a UNIX environment on the
>Amiga, that is even more free than MINIX, is a (loosely) organized and
>(loosely) coordinated effort to duplicate the environment, with duplication
>as the explicit goal.
>
>Mike Robinson                                 USENET:  ucbvax!ernie!robinson

  It certainly sounds like a good idea... just add a few features to AmigaDOS
to let Unix system call emulation libraries be written.  Manx has, someone
pointed out, done most of that, and AmigaDOS needs a rewrite anyway.  Would
pipe(2) and co. be *too* hard to add?

  If Commodore-Amiga doesn't want to do that (and maybe even if they do), why
don't they publish the AmigaDOS source, and let other interested parties (do
I hear cheering from the net? :-) ) try?  Perhaps I'm ignorant of some over-
riding legal necessity, but I don't see what's stopping them.  Somehow I
don't think it's the firmware that's stopping clone-makers...


P.S. Another idea for C-A marketing: The EA demo disk that comes with the
machine is neat, but why don't you fill it up with some of the more useful
PD utilities around?  I'm sure you've noticed the average Amiga buyer is
more technically oriented than, say, the average Amiga advertisement (couldn't
resist!), and could cope with PopCLI, AmigaTerm, alternate text editors/shells,
and/or the ASDG RRD (if they wouldn't mind).  It would make the machine even
more attractive without costing you anything.

  Hack, an implementation of life, a simple doodle program, and/or a Mandelbrot
generator would probably also be appreciated by buyers trying to do something
with the machine for the first time.  Some of us can swap disks, but others
suffer trying to bring software over the phone lines without uudecode, shar,
or ARC.  Maybe you could also borrow some of Fish Disk 13, and let it
accompany the existing Amiga Basic demo programs.


	-Colin Plumb (c/o csc@watmath.UUCP)

Zippy says:
Is he the MAGIC INCA carrying a FROG on his shoulders?? Is the FROG
his GUIDELIGHT?? It is curious that a DOG runs already on the ESCALATOR...