munck@linus.UUCP (Robert Munck) (05/12/89)
I'm getting pretty tired of the knee-jerk Intel 80X86 bashing in
this group. I've been in the business of designing and writing
operating systems and real-time executives for quite some time, for
machines as varied as the IBM/360-67, Metra 400S, AN/UYK-20, 8080,
6809, and, currently, the 80386. I'm having more fun writing this
(secure) OS for the 386 (in Pascal) than I've had on any of the others over
all those years. IMHO, the 386 is a wonderful machine for advanced and
experimental operating systems, and it's a real shame that the great
majority of them are running monstrosities like UNIX or pitiful little
MS-DOS.
I realize that some of those out there doing the bashing are assembly-
language programmers or writers of compiler code generators (or even both),
and may not have the same concerns about the CPU as I have. However,
to paraphrase Heinlein, such people may have other nasty habits.
-- Bob Munck, munck@mitre.orghenry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (05/14/89)
In article <53175@linus.UUCP> munck@linus.UUCP (Robert Munck) writes: > I realize that some of those out there doing the bashing are assembly- >language programmers or writers of compiler code generators (or even both), >and may not have the same concerns about the CPU as I have... Surely you have that backwards: *you* don't have the same concerns (problems, headaches, and sheer frustration) that *they* have. -- Subversion, n: a superset | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology of a subset. --J.J. Horning | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
pl@kaarne.tut.fi (Lehtinen Pertti) (05/14/89)
From article <53175@linus.UUCP>, by munck@linus.UUCP (Robert Munck): > all those years. IMHO, the 386 is a wonderful machine for advanced and > experimental operating systems, and it's a real shame that the great > majority of them are running monstrosities like UNIX or pitiful little ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I have always wondered where this flaming against unix has come from. When I met unix on PDP-11/24 (UNIX v6) it run happily with 256 kb memory from 2 10Mb harddisks system taking up 64kb. And up to 8 users were ableto use it. It wasn't too monstrous then and I think that it hasn't grown too much since then. I remember when OS/2 debate started and they say that UNIX is out because it is too big and heavy, but the knowledge from OS/2 I have tells me that it isn't any smaller or lighter. So I wanna know: What is so monstrous in UNIX? Pertti Lehtinen pl@tut.fi pl@tut.fi ! -------------------------------- ! Pertti Lehtinen ! Alone at the edge of the world ! Tampere University of Technology ! -------------------------------- ! Software Systems Laboratory
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (05/15/89)
In article <53175@linus.UUCP>, munck@linus.UUCP (Robert Munck) writes: > IMHO, the 386 is a wonderful machine for advanced and > experimental operating systems, and it's a real shame that the great > majority of them are running monstrosities like UNIX or pitiful little > MS-DOS. IMHO, the 80386 is the first decent micro Intel has done since the 8080. And that's the problem. Intel's had too long a history of bad design for most of us to accept that the 80386 is anything but a fluke. And you have to differentiate between UNIX, the system, and UNIX, the implementations. Once upon a time UNIX was a nice little experimental O/S... and if your O/S ever becomes popular and catches on it'll be subject to marketroid-driven code-bloat. -- Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Business: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. Personal: ...!texbell!sugar!peter, peter@sugar.hackercorp.com.