knudsen@ihnss.UUCP (07/20/84)
<blank leader> Someone asked about OS-9 in general. First of all, I read in these newsgroups some time ago that the 68000 version project had been abandoned, but perhaps some employees quit and are keeping it alive. Any good rumors? The second question concerned OS9's similarity to UNIX (trademark of AT&T Bell Labs). Yes, OS-9 is a scaled-down UNIX -- same hierarchical file system, devices==files, redirected and pipelined I/O, etc. Modular structure allows addition, removal, and replacement of device drivers, etc. The OS-9 Shell is very primitive (no looping, conditionals, and worst of all no * or ? filename lists), but thjis too could be upgraded when someone writes a better one. On the plus side, OS-9 lets you "load" (lock in RAM) processes that you expect to use a lot, thus reducing accesses to the floppies. Finally, note that a Radio Shack Color COmputer ($200-260) plus a disk drive ($325--$400) is all you need to get it running (Radio Shack sells OS9 for $70, full C system for $100). Of course versions are available for high-end 6809 systems as well, including Level II which does a lot more than the Shack version because more RAM and MMU are available. See this year's issues of The Rainbow magazine (Color Computer, no relation to the DEC Rainbow machine) for discussions of OS9's pros and cons. mike k
jejones@ea.UUCP (07/23/84)
#R:ihnss:-215700:ea:7100014:000:1227
ea!jejones Jul 23 13:54:00 1984
Re OS-9/68000: it exists, it is indeed put out by Microware, and it can be
bought. An outfit called Hazelwood Computer Systems sells it with their
(admittedly idiosyncratic) 14-pin extension of SS-50 boxes. Smoke Signal
Broadcasting is selling 68008 boards on the SS-50 bus, and should be offering
OS-9/68000. Gimix should be following suit, though I think they may be
looking at another bus, the SS-50 having reached its limits some time back.
If you want to roll your own, you can get a package with object modules
for of OS-9/68000 Level One, source for what's supposed to be enough stuff
to give you an idea of how to do what's peculiar to your machine, a
screen editor, and a C compiler for I think about a kilobuck. The
OS-9/68000 docs say you ought to have either a machine running OS-9 or
an 11 or VAX (why these in particular? dunno...) running Unix before
starting a port.
('Twould be nice to have it on a Macintosh; someone asked Ken Kaplan
(pres. of MWare) about this, and his reply was that it was hard to pry
details of software and interfaces out of Apple. Maybe eventually...
Anyone up to helping convince Uncle Clive Sinclair to trash his odd OS
for the Quantum Look and use OS-9 instead?)
James Jones