Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!ut-sally!husc6!sri-unix!sri-spam!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!jade!mica!spencer From: spencer@mica.BERKELEY.EDU (Randy Spencer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Amiga good for hacking?? Message-ID: <2743@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Tue, 10-Mar-87 03:42:26 EST Article-I.D.: jade.2743 Posted: Tue Mar 10 03:42:26 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 10-Mar-87 22:37:29 EST References: <2705@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <1519@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: spencer@mica.BERKELEY.EDU (Randy Spencer) Distribution: world Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 85 In article <1519@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes: >in article <2705@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>, mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (No one lives forever.) Meyer) says: >> >> Carefull, there - the stuff written in England is what provides all >> the nice message passing, library primitives, resource allocation and >> etc. that people like so much. I think that the real crud is in the >> attempt to mate a BCPL system with a C system. > >No, no, no, no. The message passing, task swapping, devices, libraries, >lists, memory allocation, etc. are all part of the Exec subsystem. Its true >that AmigaDOS builds on top of these constructs (like Exec Tasks being a >subset of DOS Processes) and provides easier access to them (like directly >managing a console.device versus opening the DOS device "CON:"), but all of >these low level items are part of Exec, and I think that most of these, at >least in 1.2, are written in assembler, not C and certainly not BCPL. > >> __ ____ ____ _____ _____ _____ >Dave Haynie /// / _ | / __ \ / _ \ / _ \ / _ \ >Commodore Technology /// / / | | /_/ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Cute result of cutting .signature file. So if what RJ says (thru Mitsu, though I have heard it myself) is true then somewhere out there is a really great operating system for the Amiga just waiting to be born. It would give us a real hackers computer. No longer would it take hackers extrodinaire to figure out the workings between the C stuff and the BCPL stuff (like Jim Goodnow and his fexec()). There would be resource tracking and all the fancy stuff that Mitsu mentioned. It would be such a dream to program that people everywhere would sell their anything box and race out to buy the Amiga 1000 because on top of all the great stuff that made it into the box on release (blitter and such custom chips, high res NTSC analog RGB video, multitasking with variable resolution screens, devices for everything, and message passing between them all, autoconfig expansion, etc. etc. etc. ad-infinitum), a real CS buff's dream in a box, there would also be that wonderful operating system sitting on top of the bug-less Exec, making everything run smoothly. That would be 100%. Every thing done right! It would really be the computer to beat! Only that ain't happened yet. We have AmigaDOS, it's OK, but the potential is so much more. All that wonderful planning, it almost boggles the mind how all the parts of the Amiga work together, but in the first magazines that I read about the Amiga (what was that? ten years ago?) all they talked about was the operating system, "tripos, not Unix!" And that is all that I have heard since. I fear that the perspective buyer gets that as his first impression also. "Weird operating system". So, I for one am interested in seeing where that "other" operating system could have taken us. Maybe, if there was enough interest, there would be some money set asside to finish the work on it. Heck, isn't the Amiga really taking off? This might be the perfect gift for it. Maybe they are just going to take tripos and change it function call by function call into the REAL "Amiga Dos". What do people think would be involved? Who would we need to get involved to increase our chances of making it a reality? What would be the consequences? Destroying the entire current software base? Starting everybody again as if it were a new machine? Maybe if the original Amiga Dos was supposed to do resource tracking it had support for an MMU, like the one that Amiga will have with its 68020 card. Can't do an MMU with the 68000 (unless you get rid of those nasty A2000 burned in ROMs.) So, do we want to see the Amiga that was to be on the 68020 card, or shall we just put Unix on it? Unix, line oriented, background commands with the & operator. No Intuition windows, no Amiga software at all, just Unix on that 68020 card. Am I dreaming? (as John Adams says in "1776") "...does anybody see... what I see?" {"John your a bore, we've heard it before, so for God's sake, John, sit down!"} -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Randy Spencer P.O. Box 4542 Berkeley CA 94704 (415)284-4740 I N F I N I T Y BBS: (415)283-5469 Now working for |||||||||||::::... . . BUD-LINX But in no way |||||||||||||||::::.. .. . Officially representing ||||||||||||:::::... .. ....ucbvax!mica!spencer s o f t w a r e spencer@mica.berkeley.edu -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-