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From: ken@gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.microport,comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: C bug causes double panic
Message-ID: <18227@gatech.edu>
Date: 24 Mar 89 05:15:05 GMT
References: <244@tree.UUCP> <9884@smoke.BRL.MIL> <2044@viper.Lynx.MN.Org> <13866@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US> <2863@daisy.UUCP>
Reply-To: ken@gatech.UUCP (Ken Seefried iii)
Organization: School of Information and Computer Science, Georgia Tech, Atlanta
Lines: 49

In article <2863@daisy.UUCP> david@daisy.UUCP (David Schachter) writes:
>In article <13866@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US> jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US (John F. Haugh II) writes:
>>The 80286 does have problems.  I doubt that a fully functional and
>>robust operating system for an 80286 can ever be had.  

I beg to differ...there is a group at Rice that has ported BSD 4.3 to
the 286.  While some might not consider 4.3 functional, they have all
been locked up somewhere safe...;') (and, no, you can't get 4.3 unless
you have a source license, among other things...)

>
>The 80286 doesn't implemenent as nice an architecture as a 68000 or NS32016.  

This is, of course, an understatement...

>But
>is is a lot better than the PDP-11, which is what the chip was modelled after (as
>well as upwardly compatible with the 8086/8.)  

Um...this is sure news to me.  The PDP-11 has a nice, clean
instruction set, lots (for the time) general purpose registers, and a
different MMU scheme.  I LIKE to programme the PDP-11.  If I'm wrong, 
do correct me...could you point out what features the PDP and the 286 
have in common?

The 286 was based on extentions to the 8086...which was based on the
8080...which was based on the 8008...you get the idea...

>The chip was NOT designed with UNIX in mind.  

True...;')  I often wonder WHAT it was designed for.  This is a
serious question!  What was Intel shooting for?  iRMX?  MS-DOS?
CP/M?

I find it interesting that noone (that I know of) has REALLY written 
an operating system based on the 286 features (as apposed to adapting
an old arch (MS-DOS) or making the arch look like something else
(Unix)) except Microsoft (OS/2) and Intel itself (iRMX/286).

>What CPU were you using in 1982?

As a matter of fact...a PDP-11/2 (and a Z-80)...

>Unwarranted attacks on computer architectures offends me.

Like putting the 286 and the PDP-11 in the same group? ;') ;')

	...ken seefried iii
	   ken@gatech.edu