Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!esosun!ucsdhub!sdcsvax!net1!hutch
From: hutch@net1.ucsd.edu (Jim Hutchison)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga UNIX
Message-ID: <4928@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>
Date: 6 May 88 08:25:54 GMT
References: <211@laic.UUCP> <3663@cbmvax.UUCP> <1872@sugar.UUCP>
Sender: nobody@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU
Reply-To: hutch@net1.UUCP (Jim Hutchison)
Lines: 42
Sub-Organization: UCSD EMU Project (Educational Microcomputer Unix)


In article <1872@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
>Now this article got corrupted, but apparently not to badly...
>In article <3663@cbmvax.UUCP>, daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes:
>> in article <211@laic.UUCP>, darin@laic.UUCP (Darin Johnson) says:
>> > Has anyone bothered to think about writing a non-VM unix for the Amiga?
>> > Buying a 68020/851 card... seems like a waste...
>> You don't absolutely have to have virtual memory in a UNIX system, though
>> ... that lots of stuff won't run without it...
>
>This isn't really an answer to the guy's question. To begin with it implies
>that UNIX is a hog. System V might be a hog (though it's way better than
>some of the proprietary operating systems certain well-known companies are
>developing), but UNIX <> System V.

Virtual memory, yes, the Amiga has it right now.  Each process sees a linear
address space based at 0, which is not based at physical 0.  This is one
form of virtual memory.  If you take this and add swapping, you have a memory
management system which will handle pre-paging unixes.  This takes you up
through various system V releases, but not the recent ones.  Paging is still
a nice preformance improvement, and *I* prefer the Berkeley "hacks" to the
purity of the AT&T "features".

As to Unix portability, E.M.U., IBM pc running Unix with an nd like filesystem.
640Kbytes of memory each, 2Mbyte root partition, and 8+Mbyte of read-only
space shared between fellow clients for things like vi, Mail, more, etc..
(Note:  EMU was a project, is a lab setup, was a paper, is not a product.)

Yes, I thought about the question of Unix for the Amiga.  No, Unix is not
a hog, but I use this machine for play.  !HACKS!  Give me POPCLI, give me
z, give me uedit, give me Zap (which I keep forgetting to send $$ to the
author), give me messages to pass, drivers to bind, clipboards to share
memory in, funky devices like the PIPE: device.  I revel!  Think of Mach.
Mach is message passing (Unix-mod (please don't shoot, this is what I
got from their presentation, I could be oh so very wrong)).

Still there are always compatibility libraries.  If I don't here of one  
by then, I will be doing fork()/wait() with tasks in the not so distant
future.

    Jim Hutchison   		UUCP:	{dcdwest,ucbvax}!cs!net1!hutch
		    		ARPA:	Hutch@net1.ucsd.edu
Disclaimer:  I represent my own opinions.