wzg91@ttacs1.ttu.edu (BROWN, KEVIN) (05/07/89)
To the Amiga OS developers: I've been informed about the history of AmigaDOS, and why there haven't been any attempts to rewrite it. My humble apologies for flaming you in my last post. Considering the pressures and limitations placed on you, you've done an excellent job. C-A management, on the other hand, deserves the full force of my previous flame. While I now understand and (partially) agree with the reasons for the INITIAL version of AmigaDOS (time constraints for release of the product), I DON'T agree with the reasons for not FIXING the problem (i.e., I don't agree with the priorities set by C-A management: Autobooting, V1.2 of the OS, FFS, etc. taking priority over a rewrite of AmigaDOS). The reason is that autobooting and FFS can both be accomplished by a rewrite of AmigaDOS, with the added advantage that the current limitations of AmigaDOS would be removed. Granted, rewriting AmigaDOS will introduce a host of new bugs, but finding these is what beta testers are for! Out of curiosity, how many people are actually acting as beta test sites for new revisions of the OS? I suspect not nearly enough. There are a LOT of people on comp.sys.amiga and comp.sys.amiga.tech. I'd be willing to bet that quite a number of them (myself included) would be willing to act as beta-test sites, provided that it doesn't cost anything (and why should it? Beta testers are providing a service for free, at least to the best of my knowledge!). But since your hands are essentially tied by management (unless the situation has changed, of course), I have a suggestion: why not release information about the internal workings of DOS to those who are interested and let THEM rewrite it? Many of them (myself included) would probably be willing to do it for FREE! Already we have one person (Deven Corzine) working on a Un*x programmer's interface for the Amiga. I suspect he'd be elated if he were allowed to rewrite DOS! God knows he seems competent enough to do so... And when you have enough versions, you can evaluate them all and decide on which one to use and then release it to your beta-testers. Needless to say, I would strongly recomment hiring the author of the DOS you decide to use so that bug-killing will be easier :-) :-). And once the bugs are out, you can release it to the world... So what about it, guys? What's to stop you from taking this course of action? It doesn't look like AmigaDOS will be rewritten in-house anyway (at least not any time in the near future) so why NOT have it written elsewhere??? And your management might like the idea, too, since you (the Amiga OS people) could concentrate on what your management believes are the priority items. In other words, C-A, what do you have to lose? Kevin Brown Internet: wzg91@ttacs1.ttu.edu or Bitnet: WZG91@TTACS1 or c8u00@ttacs1.ttu.edu C8U00@TTACS1 Snailnet: 404 Gaston Hall Voicenet: (806)742-4375 Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX 79406
deven@pawl.rpi.edu (Deven Corzine) (05/08/89)
In article <14868@louie.udel.EDU> wzg91@ttacs1.ttu.edu (BROWN, KEVIN) writes: >Already we have one person (Deven Corzine) working on a Un*x >programmer's interface for the Amiga. I suspect he'd be elated if he >were allowed to rewrite DOS! Ah, name recognition. :-) Rewriting DOS? [Actually, I generally prefer to say "AmigaDOS" simply because PC users always say "DOS" meaning "MS-DOS" and assume it's about the only DOS worth thinking about... and I'd rather not be grouped with PC users... :-) Anyway...] While I'd certainly like to be able to rewrite the "official" dos of the Amiga, to be distributed by Commodore-Amiga, it doesn't seem to likely, at this point. Perhaps eventually. :-) On the other hand, were I to write a new filesystem which could completely replace AmigaDOS, and yet still run concurrently with AmigaDOS if you wish, as part of my Amigix project... [an idea I am giving serious consideration] Well, if it is clearly superior in all ways, but for source code compatibility [and still have AmigaDOS itself available if you really WANT that] and have the interface be one similar to the Unix model (probably with extensions)... Can you say "de facto standard?" Look at ARP. Prime example. ARP is clearly superior in most respects to AmigaDOS, and its use is therefore quite widespread. ARexx is another example. While commercial, it is nevertheless well on its way to being a de facto standard for the Amiga. Now, say I were to have a shell which is a superset of Unix sh, csh, tcsh, ksh, et al. (or mostly a superset) and also supported communication between programs over ARexx ports? I'm not saying I'd necessarily attempt to duplicate the script language in such a shell, but allowing it to coordinate programs as ARexx can, [those which ARexx can] would give the shell the [apparently] most-used and most-wanted feature of ARexx, while encouraging even more people to include ARexx ports in their programs... Of course, there are those who believe I can't do it, or that it simply can't be done. I disagree. But only time can prove who shall have the last laugh. >God knows he seems competent enough to do so... Why, thanks! :-) Deven -- shadow@[128.113.10.2] <shadow@pawl.rpi.edu> Deven T. Corzine (518) 272-5847 shadow@[128.113.10.201] <shadow@acm.rpi.edu> 2346 15th St. Pi-Rho America deven@rpitsmts.bitnet <userfxb6@rpitsmts> Troy, NY 12180-2306 <<tionen>> "Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible." - A.K.