Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!ucsd!ogicse!blake!Tomobiki-Cho!mrc
From: mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: NeXT and Multics-bashing
Message-ID: <5736@blake.acs.washington.edu>
Date: 13 Feb 90 20:03:09 GMT
References: <5646@blake.acs.washington.edu> <20799@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Sender: news@blake.acs.washington.edu
Organization: Mendou Zaibatsu, Tomobiki-Cho, Butsumetsu-Shi
Lines: 30

In article <20799@watdragon.waterloo.edu> tbray@watsol.waterloo.edu (Tim Bray) writes:
>mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) writes:
>>It may be said that Tenex and TOPS-20 are powerful operating systems
>>hidden behind a powerless environment, whereas Unix is a powerless
>>operating system hidden behind a powerful environment.
>
>Gimme a break.  Unix earned its stripes running on PDP 11/34's, at a
>time whine Tenex and Tops were running on humungous (for the time)
>36-bit mainframes.  Yes, they had some neat stuff; but when I first
>worked on Unix at the relatively late date of 1978 it was *far* from
>powerless.

Yes, I meant powerless.  The Unix operating system -- the kernel --
was, and still is, relatively powerless.  For proof, review section 2
of the manual and the number of programs that must run setuid.  The
power that Unix has is in the various shells and tools that run on top
of Unix.

The lesson learned for future operating system design is that design
efforts should be for power in the environment, not in the kernel.

 _____     ____ ---+---   /-\   Mark Crispin           Atheist & Proud
 _|_|_  _|_ ||  ___|__   /  /   6158 Lariat Loop NE    R90/6 pilot
|_|_|_| /|\-++- |=====| /  /    Bainbridge Island, WA  "Gaijin! Gaijin!"
 --|--   | |||| |_____|   / \   USA  98110-2098        "Gaijin ha doko ka?"
  /|\    | |/\| _______  /   \  +1 (206) 842-2385      "Niichan ha gaijin."
 / | \   | |__| /     \ /     \ mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU "Chigau. Gaijin ja nai.
kisha no kisha ga kisha de kisha-shita                  Omae ha gaijin darou."
sumomo mo momo, momo mo momo, momo ni mo iroiro aru    "Iie, boku ha nihonjin."
uraniwa ni wa niwa, niwa ni wa niwa niwatori ga iru    "Souka. Yappari gaijin!"