ralphw@IUS3.IUS.CS.CMU.EDU (Ralph Hyre) (04/28/88)
In article <2531@unicus.UUCP> craig@Unicus.COM (Craig D. Hubley) writes: >In article <290@boing.UUCP> dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) writes: >>In article <2504@unicus.UUCP> *I* write: >>>to Amiga Unix tasks (remember AmigaDOS will run as a task under Amiga Unix). >> >>As far as I know, AmigaDOS will not be running as a task under Amiga Unix. > >Arg. Clarification, Commodore ? Anyone who has seen a Sun RoadRunner (386i machine) will know kind of seamless integration is possible. (PC-DOS and Unix filesystem integration, run up to 16 PC-DOS programs (via the '386 virtual 8086 capability.) Borrowing from something someone else stated on comp.unix.aux, AmigaDOS should be to AmigaUnix as PC/DOS is to the Sun-386i. 68020/030 support full virtual machine models, so that AmigaDOS won't even have to know it's running under AmigaUnix, (ie let the Unix kernel do all the trapping and handling of Intuition stuff, or whatever.) This is a perfect opportunity to improve on what Apple (for example) has attempted to do. Commodore, please don't let whoever you buy your Unix from screw you into a fixed, closed, 'turnkey' system. Silicon Graphics seems to have this problem with the UniSoft Unix they use, I'd never even think of trying to add a device to the (undocumented) kernel. > Not even Apple or IBM has been this stupid, and they don't care either. > A/UX and OS/2 will supposedly run old Mac and old MS-DOS programs. Apple doesn't seem to have the degree of MacOS<->AUX integration that seems useful - you can't plug in a Mac disk and run the Mac software on it. The current Mac Disk<->A/UX 'conversion program' only handles MFS (400k) disks. If the MAST bunch don't get their act together and keep doing neat things that the PC people still only dream of, I may have no choice but to get a '386 machine. Remember, the 68020 virtual machine is a REAL 68020, not like the Intel product, which wimped out and only did a 8086 inside the 80386 - this will make it hard to do OS/2 under Unix, but on the other hand nobody sane would want to.) -- - Ralph W. Hyre, Jr. Internet: ralphw@ius2.cs.cmu.edu Phone:(412)268-{2847,3275} CMU-{BUGS,DARK} Amateur Packet Radio: N3FGW@W2XO, or c/o W3VC, CMU Radio Club, Pittsburgh, PA
pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) (04/30/88)
In article <1556@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, ralphw@IUS3.IUS.CS.CMU.EDU (Ralph Hyre) writes: > AmigaDOS should > be to AmigaUnix as PC/DOS is to the Sun-386i. 68020/030 support full virtual > machine models, so that AmigaDOS won't even have to know it's running under > AmigaUnix, (ie let the Unix kernel do all the trapping and handling of > Intuition stuff, or whatever.) There's an important difference between an MSDOS/UNIX interface and an AmigaDOS/UNIX interface: MSDOS doesn't have anything to contribute to UNIX. It doesn't have lightwait :-) processes. It doesn't have the generality of AmigaDOS devices. It doesn't have ASSIGN. UNIX doesn't have these either, but AmigaDOS does. I'm not just concerned that AmigaDOS run on the same machine as UNIX, without rebooting. I'm not just concerned that AmigaDOS programs be runnable WHILE UNIX is running. And I'm not just concerned that UNIX be able to directly run AmigaDOS programs, and vice-versa. I'm also concerned that UNIX be able to handle AmigaDOS assigns, devices, etc. And I'd hate to trade AmigaDOS lightweight processes for UNIX's behemoths. I'd hate to have unix programs not use AmigaDOS's shared libraries (ever looked at the size of a program that uses sunview?). I'd hate to give up shared memory. And so on. Rather than simply porting UNIX to the Amiga, why not add the best features of UNIX that the Amiga doesn't have to AmigaDOS? There are certainly some, but not as many, I think, as important features AmigaDOS has and UNIX doesn't. BTW, I'm not talking about the CLI. Yuck. I'm not talking about all those BCPL programs. I'm talking about the Amiga's "kernel." -- -Peter Schachte pds@quintus.uucp ...!sun!quintus!pds
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (05/18/88)
in article <1556@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, ralphw@IUS3.IUS.CS.CMU.EDU (Ralph Hyre) says: > In article <2531@unicus.UUCP> craig@Unicus.COM (Craig D. Hubley) writes: >>In article <290@boing.UUCP> dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) writes: >>>In article <2504@unicus.UUCP> *I* write: >>>>to Amiga Unix tasks (remember AmigaDOS will run as a task under Amiga Unix). >>>As far as I know, AmigaDOS will not be running as a task under Amiga Unix. >>Arg. Clarification, Commodore ? > Anyone who has seen a Sun RoadRunner (386i machine) will know kind of seamless > integration is possible. .... AmigaDOS should be to AmigaUnix as PC/DOS is > to the Sun-386i. If AmigaOS were as simple/mindless/brain-dead/etc. as is PC-DOS, this would certainly be possible. However, it isn't. For example, let's assume you have Exec running as a UNIX process. As everyone knows, AmigaOS is a real-time OS, and expects to be so. Oh, but you mean UNIX isn't, and my sub-EXEC won't have any guarantees about CPU time. I'm not any of the software engineers working at this, just the one of the hardware guys that gave them the problem to think about. But that's the kind of problem involved. > This is a perfect opportunity to improve on what Apple (for example) has > attempted to do. Well, we do have re-entrant libraries already, so it would be hard to have the same kind of problems that Apple has. > - Ralph W. Hyre, Jr. -- Dave Haynie "The B2000 Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {ihnp4|uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy "I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"