Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!rochester!ritcv!cci632!ccicpg!leo!harald
From: harald@leo.UUCP ( Harald Milne)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: UNIX on the Amiga
Summary: Yessir
Message-ID: <1907@leo.UUCP>
Date: 17 Feb 88 07:17:33 GMT
References: <6836@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <1869@leo.UUCP> <2836@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <41976@sun.uucp>
Organization: CCI CPD (Advanced Development), Irvine CA
Lines: 54

In article <41976@sun.uucp>, cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) writes:
> In article <647@nuchat.UUCP> peter@nuchat.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
> > It still wouldn't be as reliable as a plain vanilla UNIX implementation, 'cos
> > of all the shared memory segments... but hopefully you could blow the AmigaDOS
> > emulation out of the water and get back to plain UNIX if you did get a guru.
> 
> Good point Peter, I should be possible to create a virtual memory space that
> duplicated the existing Amiga memory space. Some fooling of the kickstart into
> believing that there was only 'nK' of memory where n >= 512 might be necessary.

	Creating a memory space is not a problem, but how can you run a multi
tasking Amiga on a multi-tasking Unix base? Together? You can not run the
Amiga environment as seperate process entities, just because of the way the
Amiga passes messages to tasks by pointer.

	No sharing here, the whole environment has to exist in one environment.

	Well you could modify UNIX to allow this SHARED action, but debugging,
and a host of other nasties would become complicated. (But not impossible)

> The exception handlers (the fastest way to the big G) would of course be 
> handled by UNIX and they could pop you into a UNIX process that was debugging
> the AmigaDOS memory image.

	I mentioned this idea before, but there are a lot of problems here.
One, UNIX handles machine resources just as Exec does, they BOTH can't!
One or the other has to be in control, and this case, it would be logical that
UNIX wins for obvious reasons.

> One bit of subterfuge that may be required would
> be a hook into the UNIX process scheduler that would give the AmigaDOS process
> higher priority (so it could run when it wanted to and act like a 'real' 
> Amiga).

	Jeez come on now. I have been kicking this idea around for 2 months with
nothing but silence. You need a lot of hooks and a specially modified UNIX to
accomplish this. Remember, we are now going to SHARE resources!

> Anyone besides me that would rather see a Memory protected, virtual
> address space AmigaDOS that can run 'old fashioned' in a separate Task?

	Yessir! Just so long it doesn't take 1 minute to run the Amiga task
from UNIX like the MacII under AUX! ACK!

	Like I said, realtime, transparent!

> --Chuck McManis
> uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
> These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.

-- 
Work: Computer Consoles Inc. (CCI), Advanced Development Group (ADG)
      Irvine, CA (RISCy business! Was an Amiga, now an AT, ACK! BARF!)
UUCP: uunet!ccicpg!leo!harald