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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,cb4476a1aa209388 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Jonathan Guthrie Subject: Re: Operating System in Ada Date: 1998/10/14 Message-ID: <7012ks$7po$1@news.hal-pc.org>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 400840761 References: <000301bdf6f6$9a9e5f60$1a404bd1@rleif> Organization: Houston Area League of PC Users User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980818 ("Laura") (UNIX) (Linux/2.0.34 (i486)) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1998-10-14T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. wrote: > The equivalent of an Ada operating system has already be done twice. > Firstly, there was the BIIN project, which was in Ada. > The second example is from the laboratory of N. Wirth, the grandfather of > Ada '83 (Great-grandfather of Ada '95). Wirth et al. at ETH Z?rich have > already created an operating system in Oberon. Oberon is written in Oberon, not Ada. Also, the Oberon system was originally part of the language's run time system. This turned out to be an incredibly bad idea, so they created a standalone language system. However, the Oberon system MUST be programmed in---wait for it---Oberon. You CAN NOT program an Oberon system in Ada, so Oberon has nothing to do with Ada. So, Oberon is as much an example of an "equivalent of an Ada operating system" as MS-DOS was. Now, it has been pointed out that implementing an operating system in Ada is kind of pointless if all you're trying to do is show that it can be done. On the other hand, if you like Ada and you've got some ideas for how an OS should be done, then go for it. (If you're looking for some ideas, I've got some API descriptions kicking around that I can share although I believe the Ada system takes care of essentially everything that I've designed.) Something you'll want to remember: you're going to want to provide easy support for languages other than Ada. That means that you're going to need C bindings for the CP (Control Program---MainframeSpeak for "kernel", sort of) API at the very least. (It would help if porting Unix or Win32 C sources to this system is a simple matter of a recompile and relink.) That helps to prevent your system from becoming a mere curiousity. Then, for that system to become popular, all you need is a pile of luck. -- Jonathan Guthrie (jguthrie@brokersys.com) Information Broker Systems +281-895-8101 http://www.brokersys.com/ 12703 Veterans Memorial #106, Houston, TX 77014, USA We sell Internet access and commercial Web space. We also are general network consultants in the greater Houston area.