Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!necntc!linus!philabs!sbcs!bnl!drs
From: drs@bnl.ARPA (David R. Stampf)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Abaq OS, what is it ?
Message-ID: <384@bnl.ARPA>
Date: 3 Mar 88 13:58:32 GMT
References: <24297@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> <438@nikhefh.hep.nl>
Reply-To: drs@bnl.UUCP (David R. Stampf)
Organization: Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, N.Y.
Lines: 53

In article <438@nikhefh.hep.nl> gert@nikhefh.hep.nl (Gert Poletiek) writes:
>In article <24297@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> wallman-george@CS.Yale.EDU (Natuerlich!) writes:
>>Excuse a question, I am not uptodate at all.
>>  Will the Abaq run UNIX ? Which one ?
>>
>
>The OS for the ABAQ (if that's what it will be called: there are rumours that
>there is a Belgian company selling a games computer of the same name -) )
>will be HELIOS. This OS is being written by a british company called
>Perihelion. HELIOS is based on UNIX and on the distributed operating system
>Amoeba developed by A.S. Tanenbaum (you know: the one that did MINIX). Amoeba
>is a capability based distributed operating system, and HELIOS is too.
>
>HELIOS is being written in C and transputer assembler NOT IN OCCAM. Most of
>the system calls of UNIX (V7 and some BSD) are equivalent, though more system
>calls are available to take advantage of the transputer architecture. Those
>system services include spawning processes on remote processors and inter
>process communication (IPC) using a message passing system. UNIX pipes are
>also (I think) implemented on top of the IPC, so pipes can be stretched
>across different computing nodes.
>
>More info can be had from Perihelion or Atari UK (I don't have the addresses
>right now).
>
>
>Gert Poletiek
>

I sent in my $100 to Perihelion to become a registered developer last year and so
far have received only one thin manual - supposedly a system calls manual.  I was
so impressed with how close it was to unix that I kicked myself in the butt 12 times,
saved up my pennies for a few months and went out and bought a Mac last week.  The
people who developed it may have had Unix at the back of their minds, but they
certainly didn't set a goal for themselves of being source code compatable - in the
way that MINIX is (with V7).  

With Ataris track record for getting things out the door (I'm still waiting for the
official Docs, blitter upgrade, rom fixes, PC add on box, a reasonable laser printer)
and the way the workstation market looks today - strict unix compliance, competative
prices and the dominance of a hand full of companies - I just don't see the world
jumping over to the people who brought you pong.  Nor do I see the major software
houses jumping to support a computer which cannot provide a simple secure computer
system - There is no hardware support for protecting memory space - the manual says
something like - support for multi-tasking is an interesting exercise - Shudder.

Anyway, anyone who believes that perihelion will be a force in the workstation market
any time this century, is welcome to contact me.  Maybe we can transfer my developer
status.

By the way - it was sooooooo nice to be able to walk into a bookstore and pick up
$100 worth of books that told me everything that I want to know about the Mac.  If I
only could have done that a year ago for the ST (as was promised by Neil).

	< dave