Xref: utzoo comp.windows.news:1795 comp.sys.misc:2610 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!lavaca.uh.edu!uhnix1!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.windows.news,comp.sys.misc Subject: What is UNIX? Re: Is SUN a "PURE PLAYER" in window systems - SunView or OpenWindows?? Message-ID: <.3ZB2Cxds13@ficc.uu.net> Date: 3 Jan 90 17:18:25 GMT References: <9001021449.AA21356@super.super.org> Reply-To: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) Followup-To: comp.sys.misc Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 23 > >Now it may be that Sun, AT&T, and Berkeley have forgotten their roots. > I believe the above three define the label UNIX. I don't. UNIX is a family of operating systems based on a uniform device interface concept, with a common programming interface and a common set of utilities. I'm writing this message on a System-III based Xenix box. I could be using anything from a PC-XT running Minix to a Sequent Balance running whatever they run... and the system would look pretty much the same. Here you are saying "X is just a label", when it's even more closely tied into the implementation than UNIX, and then pegging UNIX as BSD+SYSV. I wish you were right. Because X is a horrible design. The first rule of system design is: make the easy things easy, then make the hard things possible. This is best done by providing a simple unifying concept that defines the system. I've not heard a lot about Apollo Domain, but what I have heard is typical of pre-UNIX proprietary systems: lots of complex system calls and data structures, I/O tied closely to the hardware. And X is certainly complex to use. Am I wrong? What's the simple unifying concept for DomainOS? Or X? -- _--_|\ Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. . / `-_-'\ Also or \_.--._/ v