Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!apple!oliveb!amiga!cbmvax!jesup
From: jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Grrrr....BCPL.....
Message-ID: <6762@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 4 May 89 04:08:16 GMT
References: <14562@louie.udel.EDU>
Reply-To: jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup)
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 30

In article <14562@louie.udel.EDU> wzg91@ttacs1.ttu.edu (BROWN, KEVIN) writes:
>Why, why, WHY did you guys have to write AmigaDOS in BCPL?!?!?!?!???  Even
...
>And WHO was responsible for APPROVING such a STUPID move???  ANYONE who
>knows ANYTHING about operating systems knows that you DON'T MIX LANGUAGES
>when writing operating systems, EXCEPT when those languages are COMPLETELY
>COMPATIBLE in the way they handle their environmental requirements!!!
>Clearly, assembly language is compatible with everything. 

	I probably shouldn't bother responding, but... the tripos port
was used as AmigaDos because an unnamed company hired to do the original
DOS failed, and tripos was the fallback position.  Andy Finkel published an
article in Amiga Transactor about this never-finished OS (no, don't bother
asking why we can't use it now: the god of Compatibility rules - we don't
want to break every single program written for the Amiga.)

>Yes, I realize that AmigaDOS is based on the TriPOS operating system.  
>Didn't any of you do any RESEARCH into TriPOS to determine any 
>compatibility problems that might arise BEFORE using it as a model for 
>AmigaDOS????????

	Without Tripos there might not have been an Amiga (or a Commodore).

	Also, who ever said we have to keep the DOS in BCPL forever?  Witness
FFS, largely based on the BCPL OFS, but in assembler with improved logic.  The
OFS is about 1/2 of DOS in the ROM in 1.3.

#include <stddisclaimer.h>
-- 
Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup