From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,bc1361a952ec75ca X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-08-25 10:31:06 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!enews.sgi.com!coop.net!newsfeed1.global.lmco.com!svlnews.lmms.lmco.com!news1.lmtas.lmco.com!not-for-mail From: Gary Scott Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Progress on AdaOS Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 12:19:35 -0500 Organization: LM Aeronautics Message-ID: <3B87DE27.5BCF9863@lmtas.lmco.com> References: <9IFe7.12813$6R6.1221214@news1.cableinet.net> <9lghqu$ac6$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <3B7C3293.76F49097@home.com> <9lhefg$lgd$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <3B7D47F1.25D6FC78@boeing.com> <5ee5b646.0108171856.18631c4c@posting.google.com> <3B7F624B.7294D24F@acm.org> <9lr6je$5hj$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <9ltoi7$4is$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <3B82789B.8D195045@home.com> <9ltuo8$70n$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <3B829450.879B0396@home.com> <9m0d08$51j$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <3B83DE1A.7770DC9C@home.com> <9m0rc6$ak0$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <3B83F894.D7082F9A@home.com> <9m12li$db7$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <9m1u2m$baq2@news.cis.okstate.edu> <9m3ifu$bri$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <9m494u$9ic1@news.cis.okstate.edu> <3B867FE4.F4C7A687@lmtas.lmco.com> <9m6isb$8201@news.cis.okstate.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: CAA261517.lmtas.lmco.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en]C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; LMTAS} (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en,pdf Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:12414 Date: 2001-08-25T12:19:35-05:00 List-Id: Hi, David Starner wrote: > > On Fri, 24 Aug 2001 11:25:08 -0500, Gary Scott wrote: > > There have been a plethora of good multi and single user OS' in the past > > that should be well understood for their advantages and disadvantages > > before proceeding. > > It depends on your goal. Most certainly. My goal is to resurrect some of the wonderful capabilities of OS' past that UNIX fails miserably at. The most important one would be real-time control (although far from an ideal OS, I long for the absolute real-time control and determinism of VOS (something VMS lacked as well)). I also long for consistency of design philosophy rather than the compilation of inconsistently designed grad student senior projects that is UNIX (and DOS/Win since they are also highly UNIX centric). However, my all time favorite OS is VM (not that VM is a real-time OS). You can actually run over 50000 independent guest copies of Linux VMs within VM in one recent IBM test before interactive (character mode) performance begins to suffer (I think that was under Z/VM). > > If your goal is to be able to replace the kernel of a Linux/*BSD system > with a kernel written in Ada and leave pretty much everything else the > same (the same way you can interchange the Linux, *BSD and SCO kernels), > then you don't need to study a whole bunch of systems. (I personally > find that an interesting and possibly useful goal.) > > If your goal is to produce a research OS, demonsrating the start of the > art in operating systems and beta/alpha testing all sorts of > experimental features, then of course you need to study all sorts of > operating systems. > > If your goal is to produce a new operating system for the general > public, then making major visible changes is a bad idea, unless there > are huge associated improvements. I use Blackbox under X under Linux; I > find Windows and MacOS and even other X enviroments sometimes annoying, > since they don't react the way I expect. An OS that differed massively > from Unix and Windows probably wouldn't be worth the time for me to wrap > my mind around, unless I was just in the mood to play with a new OS. > (The general public is _never_ in the mood to play with a new OS.) (For > an analogy, would you buy a car where you steered with your feet? Even > if the salesman had dozens of studies from reputable studies showing > that people who had never driven before or had spent four months > training on the new car drove so much better with it?) Dvorak, Shavian > and Deseret (two phonetic alphabets for English) all failed due to this > effect. People don't like to make major changes for relatively minor > improvements. > > -- > David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org > Pointless website: http://dvdeug.dhis.org > "I don't care if Bill personally has my name and reads my email and > laughs at me. In fact, I'd be rather honored." - Joseph_Greg