Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!labrea!polya!shap
From: shap@polya.Stanford.EDU (Jonathan S. Shapiro)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Op Environment vs Op System (was: NeXT not revolutionary enough?)
Message-ID: <4958@polya.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 10 Nov 88 04:58:41 GMT
References: <471@wucs1.wustl.edu> <48@necbsd.NEC.COM> <26446@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <4833@polya.Stanford.EDU> <145@avsd.UUCP>
Reply-To: shap@polya.Stanford.EDU (Jonathan S. Shapiro)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 18

In article <145@avsd.UUCP> childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers) writes:
>In article <4833@polya.Stanford.EDU> shap@polya.Stanford.EDU (Jonathan S. Shapiro) writes:
>
>>UNIX is the first operating system of commerical import to distinguish
>>between the operating system and the [user] environment.
>
>I'm not sure that's precisely true. I've been aware of the difference between
>the OS and the user interface ever since I first studied the internals of
>CP/M, back in the late Seventies.
>

CP/M does provide some distinction, but the command interpreter is
well-known to the system. I claim [though its a long and interesting
discussion] that so long as the command interpreter is deeply known to
the operating system the user environment and the operating system
aren't different.

Jon