Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbatt!ucbvax!jade!eris!mwm From: mwm@eris.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Some thoughts Message-ID: <2431@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Wed, 4-Feb-87 13:21:39 EST Article-I.D.: jade.2431 Posted: Wed Feb 4 13:21:39 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 7-Feb-87 11:11:06 EST References: <17128@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <565@elmgate.UUCP> Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (No one lives forever.) Meyer) Distribution: na Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 37 Keywords: AmigaDOS, MINIX, UNIX, GNU In article <565@elmgate.UUCP> jdg@aurora.UUCP (Jeff Gortatowsky) writes: > Unreal? Maybe. But no more so than attemping to put the look and > feel of UNIX on a system whose design, as shipped, precludes this. Don't give me that. Unix [When I say Unix without specifiers, I mean the least common subset, roughly v7] is such a primitive OS that making something run on top of another OS with the Unix user interface is almost trivial. You really only need three things: 1) The ability to run your own command processor. 2) The ability to run another command in parallel. 3) Some form of fifo between processes. Note that the second two are actually optional, if you're willing to put up with temporary files and serial runs of filters. The Software Tools group proved how easy this was by making the Software Tools package work on damn near EVERYTHING, including CP/M-80 in the scummy version. As far as I know, the only thing that they never got it to work on was MVS, and that was because they didn't want to use the shared address space normally provided for user-level multi-tasking. Actually, I fibbed. The Software Tools group doesn't really have the look of Unix, just the feel. They improved several things on the way through, since they were starting from scratch. For instance, '?' isn't a metacharacter, so can be used to ask for help (and everything recognizes it), and as an I/O redirection operator (for seperately redirecting stderr). AmigaDOS is a lot closer to being Unix-like than some of the things that run Software Tools (like Primos Version 1). In fact, that is yet another way to tackle getting a more Unix-like environment on AmigaDOS. Get a copy of the Software Tools tape, and a good FORTRAN compiler, and do the port.