JOE@oregon.uoregon.edu (Joe St Sauver) (12/22/89)
Has anyone explored a performance-oriented alternative operating system for the NeXT hardware? That is, assume (just for the sake of discussion) that you had an application that didn't need or exploit the many features of Mach/NeXTStep... For instance, assume you were doing real-time data collection or machine tool control and didn't need or want Display PostScript, windowing, multi-tasking, etc... Assume that all you wanted was a single process with character I/O running with as high speed as possible, possibly even without virtual memory. [I know, I know, the question then becomes, "Why not buy a RISC box instead?" but set that consideration aside for the time being -- assume the platform is a NeXT, period.] Are there any empirical figures outlining how much overhead Mach imposes? Will removing/killing some of the daemons release horsepower for other processing? Is anyone exploring this sort of thing? If so, I'd be interested in hearing from you... Joe St Sauver (JOE@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU or JOE@OREGON)