[net.micro.68k] A 'generic 68K OS' needed

rb@ccivax.UUCP (rex ballard) (02/25/86)

Since I've been making a lot of noise on this subject, I thought I would
follow up with a different view.

For those in 68K who were just included, the question has been raised
as to the possibility of a "Standard OS" for the 68K machines such
as Amiga, Atari, and MacIntosh.  Unix and OS-9 have been proposed
and discussed at length in both net.micro.amiga and net.micro.atari.
Consensus thus far has been that Unix has expensive requirements
(MMU, Memory, and Hard disks) which would cause prohibitive pricing.
OS-9 is a "hot contender", but seems not to be well supported.  Since
the focus of this debate involves current and future small, graphics
oriented 68K machines, followups should be made to net.micro.68k.
Any and all systems should be discussed.

Ideal candidates should:
Be multi-tasking (True pre-emptive).
Include "Virtual Device Interface" for graphics devices.
Support a "generic graphics file" storage/transfer mechanism for allowing
	use between applications and machines.
Be portable to a number of machines (particularly Mac, Amiga, and ST)
  preferably using the "BIOS/XBIOS" or whatever low level drivers are
  currently in the machines ROM.  If it can run on a SUN or something
  big and powerful, so much the better.

Other factors:
Ease of use to both application programmers and end-users.
Hardware requirements (no MMU, small memory, floppy disks).
Expandability (adding drivers without re-linking, sharability of driver code).
Modularity (Runnable with or without graphics "Desk Top"...)
Language support.
Price.

To start, let's make it a "brainstorming session".
For a given OS, tell what is good about it, where the "missing pieces"
might be found, special features, third party support,etc..

Let's try to avoid shooting things down initially.

x@mit-prep.ARPA (Dean Elsner) (03/01/86)

Bias:	I *LIKE* inter alia RSX-11. I realise I may be the last person in
	North America to do so.

Idea:	Could O/S hackers please make the file system detachable from the
	rest of the O/S? This requires treating file systems like they
	existed at the other end of a network, and doing remote procedure
	calls like "create a directory entry for file X and give it name Y".

	An immediate benefit of this is that when you plug a FOO-format
	diskette (or binary file) into a BAR-machine all your ordinary
	utilities keep working but they use a different name for the
	diskette drive in order to use a different file-system server.

More:	To do this, you distinguish between a "device-driver" which hides
	those details of hardware to horrible for ordinary mortals to
	behold and a "file-system" which assigns meanings to the bit
	ingested and egested by the device-driver. Not only is this
	wonderfully useful for disk file systems (eg using Un*x utilities
	to help manipulate CP/M disks) but the same idea fits very well
	with terminals. You use a "crt server" to do such things as
	"scroll window" and this is converted into messages for a "device
	driver" which tickles the screen to acheive the task.

EG:	DEC (perhaps to protect some marketroid's career by inventing one
	more artificially distinct product) sells different flavors of
	files-11 on different (PDP-11 based) boxes. I recently moved a
	lot of my file utilities (written in C) from an RSX box (where
	I had to use numbered, non-heirachical directories) to another
	PDP-11 in a terminal, which had named, heirachical directories.
	All my programs worked 1st time on these new directories & file
	names. By the way, I *ONLY TRANSFERED THE BINARIES*. No compilation
	was needed to let the programs work with a 'new' file system. I
	also moved some utilities (for which I had no sources) and they
	worked 1st time too.

Refer:	RSX-11 has "Ancillary Control Process"s (ACPs) for file systems. They
	mix and match with "Device Drivers" which bend the bits. (I know
	about "class drivers" Virginia, but this is complex enough without
	recursion, reliability etc issues!) Likewise they have "ACD"s for
	terminals. Since Vaxen are ubiquitous (and often more 'respectable'
	you might want to read about ACPs (same concept) on vaxen.

I realise that the usual "Un*x is good enough, don't force users to learn
more concepts that they need" argument applies. I suggest that the discipline
of embedding remote proceedure calls into your operating system (just so it
can survive the '80s) will both help you to better organise the un*x concepts
and may allow you to flush certain concepts that become redundant as other
concepts are generalised for a network environment.

If you don't think the "un*x concepts are good enough" argument applies,
I could be persuaded to post a similar rave about why I think embedded
delimiters in files (eg '\n' in un*x) are a lose. My counter-examples
would be based on files-11 (because so many people have access to it) but I
got the idea from CDC 60-bit machines and refined it making pdp-11s emulate
IBM mainframes (faster that real time!!).

I trust (of course) all you O/S hackers will distribute source code to the
net. This will give users enough confidence that *someone* near them will
maintain the O/S that they will be happier to commit to the O/S.
-- 
x@prep.ai.mit.edu Disclaimer: I am not me.

brad@gcc-milo.ARPA (Brad Parker) (03/02/86)

In article <10@mit-prep.ARPA> x@mit-prep.ARPA (Dean Elsner) writes:
>Idea:	Could O/S hackers please make the file system detachable from the
>	rest of the O/S? This requires treating file systems like they
>	existed at the other end of a network, and doing remote procedure
>	calls like "create a directory entry for file X and give it name Y".

I have no problem with this except explaining how to reliably boot the file
system process. Any ideas?
-- 

J Bradford Parker
General Computer (HyperDrive Beach)
harvard!gcc-milo!brad

"She said, 'Just drive.'" -heard on the radio.

sman@pilchuckDataio.UUCP (Michael Spillman) (03/03/86)

> For those in 68K who were just included, the question has been raised
> as to the possibility of a "Standard OS" for the 68K machines such
> as Amiga, Atari, and MacIntosh.  Unix and OS-9 have been proposed
> and discussed at length in both net.micro.amiga and net.micro.atari.

	My nomination for generic OS is some version of public domain Forth,
	(available in source form, possibly a cleaned up F.I.G. version).
	It already is 'generic' and widely available.  With a little
	enthusiastic help, all kinds of utilities and shells could be
	contributed (for those who don't want to see the messy details).
	System requirements are about as minimal as an OS can get and
	Forth has been seen on some mighty small machines.

	Of course, this is an extremely volitile subject an I expect to
	be flamed into the great OS in the sky (others will hope it is
	elsewhere). :-).

	
			*****
	UNIX:  So much entropy, so little work.
		A VMS hacker and UNIX abuser.

	M. D. Spillman	a.k.a.	...uw-beaver!entropy!dataio!pilchuck!sman

mc68020@gilbbs.UUCP (03/07/86)

In article <267@pilchuckDataio.UUCP>, sman@pilchuckDataio.UUCP (Michael Spillman) writes:
> > For those in 68K who were just included, the question has been raised
> > as to the possibility of a "Standard OS" for the 68K machines such
> > as Amiga, Atari, and MacIntosh.  Unix and OS-9 have been proposed
> > and discussed at length in both net.micro.amiga and net.micro.atari.
> 
> 	My nomination for generic OS is some version of public domain Forth,
> 	(available in source form, possibly a cleaned up F.I.G. version).
> 	It already is 'generic' and widely available.  With a little
> 	enthusiastic help, all kinds of utilities and shells could be
> 	contributed (for those who don't want to see the messy details).
> 	System requirements are about as minimal as an OS can get and
> 	Forth has been seen on some mighty small machines.
> 
> 	Of course, this is an extremely volitile subject an I expect to
> 	be flamed into the great OS in the sky (others will hope it is
> 	elsewhere). :-).


   What's wrong with GNU?  (FORTH is not an O/S, it is a poor excuse for
a programming language!)

   GNU is public domain, essentially free, available in source form (for those
to whom such things are important).

-- 

====================================

Disclaimer:  I hereby disclaim any and all responsibility for disclaimers.

tom keller
{ihnp4, dual}!ptsfa!gilbbs!mc68020

(* we may not be big, but we're small! *)

boozer@atlas1.UUCP (Glenn Boozer) (03/08/86)

In article <39@gilbbs.UUCP>, mc68020@gilbbs.UUCP (Tom Keller) writes:
> In article <267@pilchuckDataio.UUCP>, sman@pilchuckDataio.UUCP (Michael Spillman) writes:
> > > For those in 68K who were just included, the question has been raised
> > > as to the possibility of a "Standard OS" for the 68K machines such
> > > as Amiga, Atari, and MacIntosh.  Unix and OS-9 have been proposed
> > > and discussed at length in both net.micro.amiga and net.micro.atari.
> > 
> > 	My nomination for generic OS is some version of public domain Forth,
> > 	(available in source form, possibly a cleaned up F.I.G. version).
> > 	It already is 'generic' and widely available.  With a little
> > 	enthusiastic help, all kinds of utilities and shells could be
> > 	contributed (for those who don't want to see the messy details).
> > 	System requirements are about as minimal as an OS can get and
> > 	Forth has been seen on some mighty small machines.
> > 
> > 	Of course, this is an extremely volitile subject an I expect to
> > 	be flamed into the great OS in the sky (others will hope it is
> > 	elsewhere). :-).
> 
> 
>    What's wrong with GNU?  (FORTH is not an O/S, it is a poor excuse for
> a programming language!)
> 
>    GNU is public domain, essentially free, available in source form (for those
> to whom such things are important).
> 

	With the Forth I just got, I can have it up and running on a new cpu
with totaly different address space and I/O devices in a day.  Do that with GNU!
Forth is such a flexible language that it makes a passable O/S.

gab


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  | B |   +===============================================+
 /  O  \  + Glenn Boozer     [Yep! That is my real name!] +
/   O   \ + ACCELERON        (408) 744-0800               +
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|   E   | + {ihnp4, decvax!decwrl}!amdcad!cae780!leadsv!atlas1!boozer +
|   R   | +===============================================+
=========

henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (03/11/86)

> ...What's wrong with GNU?...

It doesn't exist yet.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry

waddingt@umn-cs.UUCP (Jake Waddington ) (03/15/86)

In article <267@pilchuckDataio.UUCP> sman@pilchuckDataio.UUCP (Michael Spillman) writes:
>> For those in 68K who were just included, the question has been raised
>> as to the possibility of a "Standard OS" for the 68K machines such
>> as Amiga, Atari, and MacIntosh.  Unix and OS-9 have been proposed
>> and discussed at length in both net.micro.amiga and net.micro.atari.
>
>	My nomination for generic OS is some version of public domain Forth,
>	(available in source form, possibly a cleaned up F.I.G. version).
>	It already is 'generic' and widely available.  With a little
>	enthusiastic help, all kinds of utilities and shells could be
>	contributed (for those who don't want to see the messy details).
>

	How do we port compilers to a Forth system. I like forth. It makes 
good and low cost system but, I have never seen a compiler for "C", or Pascal, or a Lisp that would run on top of a forth based system. If we could do it
might be nice. No need for a "shell" in the Unix sence. Forth is interactive.
It would be the shell.

	Paul Fink
	ihnp4!umn-cs!waddingt

mc68020@gilbbs.UUCP (03/16/86)

In article <6489@utzoo.UUCP>, henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
> > ...What's wrong with GNU?...
> 
> It doesn't exist yet.

   And of course, it is absolutely essential that we settle on something
yesterday.  I guess we'd better use something inadequate, difficult to deal
with, and arcane like FORTH...after all, we can get that now.

   *yawn*

-- 

====================================

Disclaimer:  I hereby disclaim any and all responsibility for disclaimers.

tom keller
{ihnp4, dual}!ptsfa!gilbbs!mc68020

(* we may not be big, but we're small! *)

greg@utcsri.UUCP (Gregory Smith) (03/17/86)

In article <81@gilbbs.UUCP> mc68020@gilbbs.UUCP writes:
>> > ...What's wrong with GNU?...
>> It doesn't exist yet.
>
>   And of course, it is absolutely essential that we settle on something
>yesterday.  I guess we'd better use something inadequate, difficult to deal
>with, and arcane like FORTH...after all, we can get that now.
>
Exactly. IBM chose the 8088, didn't they? Commodore and Apple chose the
(urp,gag) 6502 way back when, didn't they?  Time waits for no good sense... :-)
>   *yawn*
-- 
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn" -J. Morrison
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Smith     University of Toronto       ..!decvax!utzoo!utcsri!greg

rb@ccivax.UUCP (rex ballard) (03/18/86)

One suggestion that came though the mail-box was AMX.  It appears
promising, and supports several processors.  Does anybody have
first hand experiences with this?

Please mail responses, we don't want to clutter up the net with
gross commercialism :-).