Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!labrea!rutgers!rochester!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!scco
From: scco@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Sean Colbath)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Op Environment vs Op System (was: NeXT not revolutionary enough?)
Message-ID: <300@ur-cc.UUCP>
Date: 4 Nov 88 15:01:43 GMT
References: <471@wucs1.wustl.edu> <48@necbsd.NEC.COM> <26446@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <4833@polya.Stanford.EDU>
Reply-To: scco@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Sean Colbath)
Organization: University of Rochester
Lines: 52

In article <4833@polya.Stanford.EDU> shap@polya.Stanford.EDU (Jonathan S. Shapiro) writes:
>In article <26446@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
>schanck@saturn.cis.ohio-state.edu (Christopher Schanck) writes
>(quoting BYTE):
>>... People have a tendency to confuse the *environment* with the operating
>>system.

True.

>Some of the readers of this newsgroup are too young to remember *why*
>this is so, and there is a simple reason.  Few popularly available
>operating systems (I don't think multics counts - I am interested in
>thousands of copies sold) before UNIX made a strong distinction
>between the command processor and the operating system.
>Traditionally, the command processor is considered part of the
>operating system implementation.  Since the command processor is the
>dominant interface to most users (EMACS users can hit N now), the
>assertion that most *operating systems* are text-based is not so
>unreasonable.

Agreed.  In this MS-DOS age of computing, people tend to believe that what
they type to is the actual OS.  In the case of MS-DOS, it is.

>For examples, consider VMS, MVS, VM/CMS, DOS, OS/2, and on and on.
>UNIX is the first operating system of commerical import to distinguish
>between the operating system and the [user] environment.

No, no, no - this is totally untrue.  True, in the case of Unix, you can
change your shell to whatever you want, but this doesn't mean that the
operating environment is distinguished from the OS its self.  Several of the
operating systems you mention allow you to do this also - VMS has a
Unix-type shell, and one or two others (although you have to pay extra for
them).  VM/CMS is actually two separate systems - *VM* is the operating
system, CMS is an operating system that runs under VM.  It's entirely
possible to bring up VM without ever running CMS or having a CMS source
tape.  You can run other operating systems under VM.  You can run Unix under
VM.

The point I'm trying to make is that it is no more apparent under Unix that
the "command-line interpreter" is a separate program than under other
systems.  In general, the people in the know will realize this, the less
experienced won't.

>Jon


Sean Colbath

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