Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!husc6!think!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!JASPER.PALLADIAN.COM!dfm From: dfm@JASPER.PALLADIAN.COM (Don Morrison) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo Subject: Re: procedural interfaces Message-ID: <870626131929.5.DFM@WHITBY.PALLADIAN.COM> Date: Fri, 26-Jun-87 13:19:00 EDT Article-I.D.: WHITBY.870626131929.5.DFM Posted: Fri Jun 26 13:19:00 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 27-Jun-87 10:49:00 EDT References: <1918@zeus.TEK.COM> Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: Don Morrison Distribution: world Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 24 Date: 25 Jun 87 21:06:52 GMT From: tektronix!teklds!zeus!bobr@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Robert Reed) In article <8706242145.AA09122@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> krowitz@mit-kermit.UUCP (David Krowitz) writes: The reason that the procedural interfaces that people have been complaining about are missing from the system is that not enough people have written UCRs demanding that Apollo release the system calls. Are you certain of this? I've gotten several private messages from persons at Apollo (probably not policy, but closer than speculation) to the effect that they haven't released the procedural interfaces under discussion because they don't want to be forced to support those interfaces in future versions. This sounds very much like the motivation for not having /dev/kmem--so there we are, no closer to a solution. The story I've been getting from folks at Apollo lately is that they've finally biten the bullet and accepted that they'll have to release more formerly internal-only system calls, and have plans for releasing various ones with upcoming OS releases. If we don't tell them just what we want them to release, they'll continue to try to guess what we want; far better that we try to tell Apollo specificially what functionality we want them to provide public interfaces for. If there's information you feel a need to be able to get, from /dev/kmem or elsewhere, and can't do it on an Apollo, send them a list of specifics; they're actually reasonable people who know they'll sell more boxes to happy customers than angry ones.