Xref: utzoo comp.arch:4604 comp.lang.misc:1540
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pioneer!eugene
From: eugene@pioneer.arpa (Eugene N. Miya)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Universal OS (striving for flexibility)
Message-ID: <8271@ames.arpa>
Date: 4 May 88 16:13:21 GMT
References: <769@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> <76700017@uiucdcsp> <843@actnyc.UUCP> <762@l.cc.purdue.edu> <1556@vaxb.calgary.UUCP> <438@ruuinf.UUCP> <4624@ihlpf.ATT.COM>
Sender: usenet@ames.arpa
Reply-To: eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene N. Miya)
Followup-To: comp.os.research
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Lines: 38

In article <4624@ihlpf.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpf.UUCP (00704a-Liber,N.J.) writes:
>In article <438@ruuinf.UUCP> piet@ruuinf.UUCP (Piet van Oostrum) writes:
>>In article <1556@vaxb.calgary.UUCP> radford@calgary.UUCP (Radford Neal) writes:
>>   A universal operating system will be designed when someone very clever,
>>How about a Turing Machine?
>Seriously, the problem with a Turing machine is that it is simple with
>respect to the person implementing it.  Programming it is a nightmare!
>(For those of you who don't think so, show me your Turing machine that
>implements the Unix kernal.  Until then, ... :-))

I thought months ago about Turing machines. The problem is worse than
programming, worse than the Unix kernel [small and elegant as it is].
The problem is we lay requirements [ooh, bureaucratese] on computers which
are sometimes irrelevant to the conventional concept of computation: how
"user-friendly" is a Turing machine?  Does a Turing machine work in a
"networked" environment?  Anyways, these are not architectural questions, so
a follow up to comp.os.research is appropriate.  Get IT out of arch.

Lawrence Crowl writes:
>In article <25750@clyde.ATT.COM> gwu@clyde.UUCP (George Wu) writes:
>> ... [architecture class] ...  The actual architectures we studied were the
>>PDP-8, PDP-11, VAX, and MC68000. ...
>
>This strikes me as a rather narrow view of architecture.  There are no stack
>machines, no vector machines, no SIMD machines, etc.

Actually, that was the point of the architectural survey.  Not to prove it
exists, but to show specific deficiencies.  I fear there are too few stack,
vector and SIMD machines to go around and not enough interest in building
them since there's more money in micros.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
	resident cynic			soon to be aurora.arc.nasa.gov
at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."