Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!think!ames!oliveb!sun!pepper!cmcmanis
From: cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: OS/2 vs. Pournelle
Message-ID: <70984@sun.uucp>
Date: 29 Sep 88 23:30:27 GMT
References: <5384@fluke.COM>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 27

In article <5384@fluke.COM> kurt@tc.fluke.COM (Kurt Guntheroth) writes:
>Here's a question I want answered...Do PS/2 (OS/2) machines have memory
>protection?  I don't mean software segments.  I mean hardware protection.
>Otherwise, you know what will happen.  The first OS/2 applications may be
>quite buggy and may have a tendency to wipe out memory, causing system
>alerts (we call them GURUs.)  What would Jerry think about GURUs from the
>Gods In Blue?
>
>In a year or so, Amiga may have serious revenge on Mr Pournelle.

The 80286 and 80386 both have hardware memory protection (with 4 levels
of security) and OS/2 uses them to it's advantage. The only differences
between OS/2 and AmigaDOS spring from this very fact. I hope C/A comes out
with a 68020 version of AmigaDOS that does support the 68851 PMMU in a 
real way. Yes, it should be able to run in "compatibility" mode and not
do rigid protection, but it should also be able to run a process in 
"enforcement" mode where all those silly crashes result in a *recoverable*
alert. Click left button to wipe the process, click the right button for
a postmortem dump, press the Middle button for wack (:-)).

Sorry, but just because the AT/286 and AT/386 boxes act like glorified 
MS-DOS machines now, they are capable of much, much more. 


--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.