PEPRBV@CFAAMP.BITNET (Bob Babcock) (05/29/87)
>> Continuing a discussion of the availability of software for OS-9 I can't say anything about OS-9 release 2 and the new C compiler because our vendor (Mizar) hasn't shipped them yet. They decided to start over from scratch on the device drivers, and supposedly finished last week. I don't have any severe complaints about the (not latest) Microware C compiler we have. With every version I have found bugs which I had to program around, but that's to be expected, and its been getting better. A couple of messages have mentioned vendors for various languages, but everything seems to be single source. >> Well, OS-9 has a comparison utility... Unless it's been enhanced, that's another sore point. Take 2 source files which differ only by the addition of a blank line, and cmp will spit out every byte past that point as a difference because it only does a byte-by-byte comparison. >>If you want to write a new shell with the usual 10 - 20 lines of >>history go ahead. No I don't want to waste my time doing that. Certainly you can hook up another computer and have it record history, but that's admitting that the shell isn't adequate. >>Did you know that the current Shell has a PATH variable? Yes, I saw mention of it in the OS-9 bug list. If it does what I expect, it's a great improvement. >>Beyond that, well, it boils down to "you show me the problem and we'll >>see if I got a solution". No real way to compare. A past problem, but all too common on any type of system. Something glitched and damaged the directory structure on the hard disk. At least one subdirectory just disappeared. Fortunately, the backups weren't too out of date. I don't know of any tools which aid a user unfamiliar with the innards of OS-9 to recover anything after an accident like this. I don't want to be too critical of OS-9. When we were looking for a real time operating system 2.5 years ago, it seemed to be the best available. We have too much invested to consider changing now, and I don't know that there is anything better anyway. Now if you really want to hear me flame, ask me about VME bus graphics boards.