Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!purdue!bu-cs!spike
From: spike@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Spike)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Multitasking GS?  Sure, why not.
Message-ID: <23275@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 11 Jun 88 20:43:13 GMT
References: <8Wf-=Jy00V4McuU0C4@andrew.cmu.edu> <379NETOPRMS@NCSUVM>
Reply-To: spike@bu-it.bu.edu (Joe Ilacqua)
Followup-To: comp.sys.apple
Organization: Boston University Distributed Systems Group
Lines: 44



	Could you have true Multitasking on the GS?  Yes, I think you.
UN*X, namely Minix, run on 8086 Machines which the GS is easily as
powerful as. 

	Would it be easy to do?  No.   It would take a great deal of
time and effort.  I do not believe that anyone could do it in their
spare time (not in any reasonable amount of time).  Also existing
software could not run under this OS as it is not likely to be well
behaved. 

	One of the major short coming in the GS is lack of real memory
management.  Any program can happily write to any memory at any time.
In a Multitasking environment this is a big problem, program can
overwrite each other and the OS.  Programs can bypass calls to the OS,
writing directly to the screen and disks, causing great deal of havoc
if more then one tries to access something at the same time.

*A place to start*

	What needs do be done first is for to write a compiler.  'C'
would be the most likely candidate, tho if well writen it could have
other front ends.  This compiler would produce code in a number of
models, using the 65816 banks.  The use of banks would make easly
relocatable, as could be loaded by the OS in to any avaible bank.
This could be done by having no 'long calls' in the code.  The 65816
allows you to relocate the stack, so each program could have its own
stack (C does quite a bit on the stack).  With a run time loader the
program could also have it's own data space or data/stack space.


	With this done porting Minix to the GS would be possible.
Also the compiler should bring big bucks ;-)

	Consider this a Request For Comment.  Lets get some ideas
flowing, and then see if we can put together a group or company to
write the compiler.

->Spike

       "You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss 3 bucks goodbye."
 UUCP:	...!harvard!bu-cs!bu-it!spike  INTERNET: spike@bu-it.bu.edu
CSNET: spike%bu-it@bu-cs   BITNET: spike%bu-it.bu.edu@bostonu "VPS sucks"