Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ames!oliveb!pyramid!bigbang!crash!gryphon!richard
From: richard@gryphon.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo,comp.sys.amiga
Subject: UN*X
Message-ID: <678@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Date: Wed, 10-Jun-87 18:04:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: gryphon.678
Posted: Wed Jun 10 18:04:06 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jun-87 06:58:13 EDT
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, Ca.
Lines: 60
Keywords: UN*X AmigaD*S AEG*S
Xref: utgpu comp.sys.apollo:140 comp.sys.amiga:5268

This is being cross posted to both groups, because a similar discussion
is going on in both. For the benefit of Amigoids, AEGIS refers to the Apollo
OS, not Bill Volk et. al..

Re: UN*X as a replacement OS.

UN*X has a bunch of womderful features, and I don't mean to denegrate it.
At the time it was written, it extracted every whit of performence out of
the machine of the day, a PDP 11/45. Now we have new machines, that we 
couldn't even of dreamed of at the time. While UN*X may be a great place
to start, does it still make sense to view it as the end all in operating
systems ?

Granted, there are many reasons to support a *true* UN*X shell. Primarily
this makes administration of heterogeneous networks simpler, and the
portability aspect os nice. But I dont think this means REQUIRING that
/dev/kmem be supported; if you are messing about in here, A) your
code is non-portable, and B) you might be overlooking a better way to
do it.

Which brings us to the next question. What qualifies a UN*X system. Well,
I'll take a stab at it. If you can take a *reasonably* portable UN*X
program and compile and run it, with only an hour or so to fix those
local implementational anomolies, its probably a decent UN*X port. If 
you cant get there from, it probably should'nt be called UN*X. Of course
crufty old non-portable stuff doesn't count.

A UN*X port should be able to support any (valid) shell script 
thrown at it.

Would a system that had these features satisfy all you UN*X wienies out
there ? :-)

I use AEGIS at work and AmigaDOS at home, and would hate to be constrained
to a something that spoke to me over a serial line. I've just gotten used
to AmigaDOS/AEGIS, and think of UN*X is a little primitive. Sure you can
tack on TCP/IP and X, or NEWS or whatever, but they are still add on's right?
An OS designed with that stuff in mind is going to be quicker and slicker.

Apollo has the right *idea* making SR.10 be based on a Kernel that can
support *real* UN*X and AEGIS. This may make everyone happy (except Dennis
Ritchie, who might complain the kernel is too big).

To summerize ther blatherings, I feel it is very important to support UN*X, but
lets try to find a way to allow use the neat parts of the machine without
*having* to go through UN*X.
 
Is an Apollo a big Amiga, or is an Amiga a small Apollo ?
 




 
 
k
-- 
Richard Sexton
INTERNET:     richard@gryphon.CTS.COM
UUCP:         {akgua, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!richard