susher@ucl-cs.UUCP (12/13/88)
From: susher@uk.ac.ucl.cs Did you know............. (1) Most of AmigaDOS was developed by Metacomco on Sinclair QLs? (2) Most of the early languages were direct QL conversions? If not, then you do now. So remember thank your lucky stars for the QL, the first Multi-tasking home micro. No QL = No Amiga = No Fun Steve Usher, dedicated QL fan. "Real programmers don't comment their code...... The meaning is obvious!"
kim@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) (12/15/88)
In article <120@ucl-cs.UUCP>, susher@ucl-cs.UUCP writes: > Did you know............. > > (1) Most of AmigaDOS was developed by Metacomco on Sinclair QLs? > (2) Most of the early languages were direct QL conversions? Welllll ... I'm not sure about Metacomco having used Sinclair's ... you may well be correct about that. BUT ... You have to be careful to explain what you mean by "AmigaDOS" in this context. They (Metacomco) did NOT develop what most people think of as being "AmigaDOS" today (which is pretty much everything on the Kickstart and Workbench floppys, I think). What they did provide is the "DOS" part of the OS ... the (old) file system, CLI/Console interface, and associated interface code, libs, etc. In BCPL. Based on Tripos. And we all know how many headaches *that* has caused. This is the part of the OS that I personally call "AmigaDOG", and accounts for much of the recent work that CBM has been trying to improve with the FFS, AmigaShell, etc. If the original plans had held, the AmigaOS would have had a nice "csh"-like interface, and a much better, faster file system from the beginning. The internal name for all of this was, I believe, CAOS. Of course if Tim King hadn't been around to provide "AmigaDOG", and help graft it onto Exec/Intuition/Etc., we might well have never seen the Amiga get out the door, too. Very mixed blessing. I would sure like to see CBM be able to get rid of all of the "AmigaDOG" stuff, so we could have nice, well defined, *documented* interfaces for doing things like writing replacement console.device's, etc. I know that they're working toward this, which is one reason they DON'T document the existing interfaces. I just wish it didn't take so looooong! I think the above comments are accurate. If not, I hope someone will correct me. Interesting about the Sinclair, however. /kim -- UUCP: kim@amdahl.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,uunet,oliveb,ames}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 BIX: kdevaughn GEnie: K.DEVAUGHN CIS: 76535,25