Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!rochester!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!hplabs!hpl-opus!hplchm!griffith
From: griffith@hplchm.HP.COM (Jeff Griffith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: OS/2 vs AmigaDOS
Message-ID: <570001@hplchm.HP.COM>
Date: 29 Apr 89 01:43:52 GMT
References: <2134@iitmax.IIT.EDU>
Organization: HP Labs Chemical Systems Dept, Palo Alto
Lines: 23


I've recently started some serious examinations of OS/2 at work, and 
AmigaDOS at home.

The two systems are quite different. Amiga does provides only two forms
of process control; you can spawn a new TASK (which I've gotten to work yet),
or you can EXEC a new process (via the equivalent of Un*x "system()").
As for IPC, AmigaDOS provides process mailboxes, semaphores, and signals;
shared memory is possible (does AmigaDOS implement protected memory?).
Also, the Amiga "Intuition" provides some of the basic windowing features
of OS/2 Presentation Manager.

On the other hand, OS/2 combines the RMX notions of tasks (in the form of 
threads with the child thread either sharing the parent's memory or having its
own) with the Unix notions of processes and IPC; quite well done it appears.

Personally, I think there is a good match of price/performance between these
two; last time I looked (and I could be wrong by now), a ready-to-run OS/2
system cost about twice the price of a ready to run Amiga; but you get twice
the system from the OS/2 box. Personally, I don't need the extra horsepower
just yet.

					Jeff Griffith