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From: jgray@toad.pilchuck.Data-IO.COM (Jerry Late Nite Gray)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: OS/2 Speculation - Which generation is it ?    (long)
Message-ID: <750@pilchuck.Data-IO.COM>
Date: Tue, 10-Nov-87 11:50:55 EST
Article-I.D.: pilchuck.750
Posted: Tue Nov 10 11:50:55 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 12-Nov-87 22:07:53 EST
Sender: news@pilchuck.Data-IO.COM
Lines: 87
Keywords: OS/2

<>

I was just reading an article in the November 1987 issue of IEEE Software
titled, "Living in the Next Generation Operating System". It's not about
OS/2. In fact, I have been wondering about which generation (acording to
this articles definitions) OS/2 is a part. This is an open question to
anyone who knows.

In this article it describes three generations of operating systems (OS)
(First, Current and Next). Though there are many distinguishing features
of various OSs the distinguishing criterial for the three are:

First:  The intermodule(task/job)-communication interface was normally 
	specified in a special purpose job-control language that mapped 
	logical input and output names used in a module to physical files
	and a sequence of modules to be run. Each module was processed to
	completion before the next was initiated, and the processing state
	was externalized in the contents of the closed file transmitted
	between phases.

	Under this rather basic limited description we can file both DOS and
	VMS though they are very different. 

Current: This is a logical extension of the sequential phases paradigm to
	interactive applications:pipelining. Each phase can begin processing
	information before the previous phase completes. Intermediate data
	(between phases) is not buffered in files but is consumed as it is
	produced.

	This generation had its roots in two insights. The first is coroutines,
	which eliminated the tyranny of subroutines' master/slave relationship
	and allowed the retention of local state (both control and data) as
	control was passed back and forth. The second insight was that the 
	normal I/O interface to the operating system was itself a candidate
	for such coroutining. The operating system could act as a wiring
	intermediary between modules that let them be pipelined through a
	conventional, but now virtual, I/O interface.

	Unix, of course, defines this generation of operating system.

Next:	In many ways this generation is a natural extension of the previous
	one. specifically:

	* Transient data can become presistent data. Rather than pushing the
	  data around through pipes where it is processed as it flows past,
	  it is held in one or more repositories where it can be accessed
	  (shared) by many modules.
	* Point-to-point communication became broadcast communication. This
	  let any module interested in a change respond to it, thus extending
	  the implicit dataflow control structures of the pipelining paradigm.
	* Intermodule interfaces became data-base interfaces.
	* Character strings became structured objects. Using a database as a
	  repository for the data being communicated between modules lets the 
	  full power of its schema be used to structure that data. 

	The articles example was an OS only referred to a the "prototype"
	which they had been working on for over three years. Their "charter"
	was to research and develope mechanisms for automated support of
	software development which they have been persuing for over 15 years.
	The OS was a result of needing an extended database operating system
	with extensions for abstract data types, object-oriented message
	passing and multiprocessors.


I actually know very little about OS/2 and would be interested in how one
could clasify it given the above definitions. 

-------

Another interesting thought about OS/2 (unrelated to the above). Has it occured
to anyone that DOS is the most widely used piece of software by the PC computer
illiterate?  I know people to "boot up" some application in the morning and
stay in it till they shut the power off an go home. The PC is just some
non-black box that performs an office function. With the growth of PC usage
a vast majority have never see early releases of DOS. Some of these people
are going to get caught up in the mad rush for OS/2........and pay for it.

---------------
					Jerrold L. Gray

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