rh2y+@andrew.cmu.edu (Russell E. Hoffman, II) (04/17/91)
Well, it (they) finally came today: My copies of the OS9 Sourcebook and
the OS9 Catalog. Yep, I finally decided to order them both. I snagged the
OS-9000 Catalog, too, just out of curiosity.
A few impressions - note that these are entirely my opinions, but I thought
maybe somebody'd be interested, especially those who haven't seen these
pieces of literature yet.
First, I was impressed with the prompt service. I ordered the stuff last
Thursday, and it arrived today (Tuesday). The books themselves are nicely
put together, neat cover art and all that sort of thing. The two
Catalogs are both about 200 pages, and the Sourcebook is about 340 pages.
I was a little disappointed with the Sourcebook. First, it's still the same
sourcebook I had a chance to see a few years back. In fact, the copy they sent
me was the 1989 edition. Not exactly up-to date., but still quite informative.
Both Catalogs were 1990/1991 editions, so I was rather impressed by that.
For those who don't know, the Catalogs give a pretty detailed description of
the features and structure of OS9, as well as a brief history. The network
support packages look very impressive and thorough. I'm still left wondering
a little bit about the differences between the ISP and ESP packages. At first
perusal, it seems the ISP is more complete, offering the daemon ends for
telnet and FTP, as well as the clients.
In the Sourcebook, a LOT of OSK hardware vendors are listed, with a VERY
impressive array of OS9 hardware, both 68K and 6809. Some of the platforms
in there are definitely ahead of their time, especially in 1989. At least
one vendor I saw listed two different 50 MHz 68030 - based systems for sale.
I even noticed an Australian firm listing an OS9/68000-based music computer
with a 35MB RAM, 1 68020 CPU, 1 68000 CPU, and _10_ 6809 CPU's, in addition
to some 16-bit audio hardware and a very large disk array...
As far as software goes, there were (as I had a sneaking suspicion) quite
a few general utility-type programs (copy, move, sort-directory, et cetera
ad infinitum), a lot of text-editors, replacement shells, and all THAT sort of
thing. To my surprise, there were also listed a lot of programming languages
and environments, many database, spreadsheet, and word-processing programs.
Also, quite a few specialized industrial-type programs for process control
and so forth. One vendor even sells an OS9 version of X11R3 (x-window)!
The Sourcebook also lists the contents of the OS9 User Group software
collection, up to and including volume 56. Much of the software ine this
collection seems to be written in BASIC09 or 6809 assembly, and, again,
much of it consists of utilities and filters. A few 68000 programs are
listed as well.
In the OS9 Catalog, Microware gives a pretty good description of their
SmartWare package, an integrated Word-processor, database, spreadsheet,
and communications program. From what I can tell from the Catalog,
it looks fairly nice. One thing I noticed was the capability to integrate
charts and graphs into text documents.
Now, after all that (whew!) I have yet one more point to make. Most
of the stuff in these two documents was geared towards industry and real-time
control, which, of course, is the main drive behind OS9 (or so it would seem
from reading this literature.) Other than a handful of accounting packages,
a spreadsheet or two, and a couple word processors, most of the software I saw
today consisted of either software development tools or file utilities. (And,
of course, the process-controll stuff) Now, I realize that not 200 million
people own OS9 based systems for their own personal computing needs. It's
fair to say more people own MS-DOS or Apple-based platforms to use to do
general purpose day-to-day computing type stuff. But there's no reason
why more general-purpose 'personal' software can't exist for OS9 based
platforms. There are CERTAINLY PLENTY of software development packages
available, so where's the software that's being developed? Now, I realize
that a lot of the stuff that gets developed is developed in-house for a
particular company, and that software never leaves that company. That's fine.
I myself have developed in-house software on OSK boxes for several people, I
know how that goes. But how many people are out there (like me) who have
OSK or OS9/6809 boxes and (like me) are realizing how much easier it would be
to get a particular task done on another platform? I try to use my OSK box
for as much as possible, but there are some things I just cant yet do.
By this point, you're probably wondering why you're still reading this article,
and you probably are thinking 'gee, another guy complaining about no PC-type
software for OSK...' Well, partially true.. But I AM trying MY best to create
some PD stuff for my own personal computing needs, and hopefully to the
advantage of others. Right now, I am developing a graphics package for
graphing data and doing least squares analysis, curve fitting, and that sort
of thing, because I need something like that for my engineering classes.
I may try to do a port of gnuplot instead; I haven't decided yet. Anyway,
before i get _too_ long-winded (too late already? :-), I'd just like to make
the point that there are certainly a few good OSK programmers out there
who can come up with some new stuff for the 'personal' market (whether PD
or not, up to you...) Maybe the new wave of CoCo fanatics who are just now
getting into the OSK world can help out; they seem to be eager and willing..
(I should know.. I still have 2 CoCo II's :-)
Well, that's my two-cent's worth.
Cheers,
Russell Hoffman
rh2y+@andrew.cmu.edu
Carnegie Mellon University
-------------------
Disclaimer: I am not an employee of Microware Systems Corp...
In fact, at the moment, I seem to be unemployed!rh2y+@andrew.cmu.edu (Russell E. Hoffman, II) (04/17/91)
My apologies to the net for getting a bit preachy towards the end of my last post. Two liters of Mountain Dew and a whole bag of Doritoes can tend to do that to a guy :-) To make my point a little better understood, what I really meant to say was that now that there seems to be a more general 'personal' interest in OS9 (at least from wher I can see it), what with a dedicated FTP site, many previous CoCo users now switching to OSK, Keving Darling's work, and so forth; it seems we can hopefully expect to see some really neat things happening in the way of new useful 3rd-party software being developed! There. I think I've said it better now. Cheers, Russell E Hoffman rh2y+@andrew.cmu.edu Carnegie Mellon Univ
bdw@mondas.UUCP (04/18/91)
Russell Hoffman:
With the advent of the MM/1 and TC9 computers, no doubt more and more
people will want applications software ported to it. IMS is *really* pushing
to develop/port application software for OSK, and heck, once my experince
and spare time quantity improve, I may even do a number or two for IMS's
IDEA group...
Personally, I think that there are good things coming out on the horizon.
OS-9 is showing signs of evolving into an everyday use OS, slowly but surely.
--
Brian D. Wright - Seattle, WA
Internet: ...eskimo.celestial.com!bdw@mondas.UUCP
FidoNET: Brian Wright @ 1:343/69
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The 68000 makers renamed SEX to EXT. So 68K programmers can't have SEX
any more, but at least they can PEA on the stack!rh2y+@andrew.cmu.edu (Russell E. Hoffman, II) (04/19/91)
Excerpts From Captions of netnews.comp.os.os9: 17-Apr-91 Re: OS9 Sourcebook/Catalog bdw@mondas.UUCP (810) > Personally, I think that there are good things coming out on the horizon. >OS-9 is showing signs of evolving into an everyday use OS, slowly but surely. I agree with you wholeheartedly! After re-reading my last post, I realized I hadn't said what I meant very clearly. What I really meant by that was that what with all the great development products and newcomers to OSK (as well as all the old-timers already there :-), it's reasonable to expect that some very exciting things should be happening soon in the realm of 'personal' applications and software useful to those in the education racket (like myself at this point). I apologize for any confusion... I'm certainly not about to start deriding OS9; I've been using it since I was 14 years old! I'm anticipating an explosion (ok, a minor outpouring) of new software that consists of more than the usual file utilities, text editors, filters, and so on ("tools used to sharpen tools," as Mr. Knudsen put it on another bulletin board). OS9 continues to be more and more refined, and at this point (IMHO) powerful applications are just DYING to be written. After all, would you rather write an application under OS9 or MS-DOS? By far, OS9 provides the better programming environment. Most successful MS-DOS programs I've seen consist mostly of "hacks" (e.g. direct screen writes, direct control of serial ports, etc..) whereby the OS is completely circumvented. I'd much rather program WITH the OS than AGAINST it. Wouldn't you? Sure. Hopefully I've clarified myself. Didn't mean it to sound the way it must've looked. Too much Mountain Dew fogs the brain ;-) >Brian D. Wright - Seattle, WA >Internet: ...eskimo.celestial.com!bdw@mondas.UUCP >FidoNET: Brian Wright @ 1:343/69 >----------------------------------------------------------------------- >The 68000 makers renamed SEX to EXT. So 68K programmers can't have SEX >any more, but at least they can PEA on the stack! Cheers, Russell Hoffman rh2y+@andrew.cmu.edu Carnegie Mellon Univ
bill@mwca.UUCP (Bill Sheppard) (04/24/91)
In article <wc2tmUO00WB3Q3YYd8@andrew.cmu.edu> rh2y+@andrew.cmu.edu (Russell E. Hoffman, II) writes: >...The network >support packages look very impressive and thorough. I'm still left wondering >a little bit about the differences between the ISP and ESP packages. At first >perusal, it seems the ISP is more complete, offering the daemon ends for >telnet and FTP, as well as the clients. ISP (Internet Support Package) and ESP (Ethernet Support Package) offer basically the same functionality - the difference is that the ESP package is specifically for Ethernet boards made by CMC, and in fact relies upon firmware found upon that board. ESP is an older package which uses some licensed code from CMC, and so costs more and runs slower (by as much as a factor of three in some cases). ISP is entirely Microware code, runs on a wider variety of Ethernet cards, and has basically replaced ESP for all hardware except the CMC 10+ (an old card). -- ############################################################################## # Bill Sheppard -- bills@microware.com -- {uunet,sun}!mcrware!mwca!bill # # Microware Systems Corporation --- OS-9: Seven generations beyond OS/2!! # ######Opinions expressed are my own, though you'd be wise to adopt them!######