knudsen@ihnss.UUCP (06/20/83)
There is a system called OS-9 for the Motorola 6809, and 8-bit micro with a hardware multiply and some 16-bit operations (and very nice to program in assembler). OS-9 includes hierarchical directories, I/O redirections, and pipelines among other UN*X goodies, and can keep more than one program in RAM at a time. "Serious" SS-50 bus 6809 systems are not exactly cheap, but any day now (?) OS-9 will become available for the poor-man's 6809 system, the Radio Shack Color Computer (eat your hearts out, 6502s and Z80s). I'm not sure who will get CoCo OS-9 to market first-- Frank Hogg Labs, or the Shack itself (the latter have been trying to get it up solid for a year....) There are solid architectural reasons why a 6809 can support higher level languages and OS'es than any other 8-bit micro, BTW. mike k