Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!unisoft!paul
From: paul@unisoft.UUCP (n)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Re: Help us defend against VMS!
Message-ID: <870@unisoft.UUCP>
Date: 21 Mar 88 06:13:20 GMT
References: <695@unm-la.UUCP> <4583@garfield.UUCP> <2134@ukecc.engr.uky.edu> <3201@phri.UUCP>
Reply-To: paul@unisoft.UUCP (Paul Campbell)
Lines: 26

In article <3201@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
>
>	If I understand Henry correctly, he's saying that you can't port
>VMS to a RISC machine.  Why not?  Other than it's proprietary nature, what
>is there to prevent a VMS port hardware other than a vax?
>



LARGE chunks of it are written in assembly .... the VMS kernel is actually very
elegant (and Vax based) internally (the user interface as we all know stinks).
The story goes that they had the base kernel running on a simulator before they 
ever got the architecture finished (they had to know what context to save in the
process switch instructions etc). VMS even does some things BETTER than Unix
(especially signals - of course they use hardware support ....)

		Paul

PS: don't flame me I've hacked VMS internals for 3 years and Unix for the last 4
    so I have a fairly balanced experience
    a reasonably
-- 
(C) Copyright Paul Campbell, you only may redistribute if your recipients can. 
	E-mail:		..!{ucbvax,hoptoad}!unisoft!paul  
Nothing here represents the opinions of UniSoft or its employees (except me)
"Nuclear war doesn't prove who's Right, just who's Left" (ABC news 10/13/87)