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- Path: news.rhrz.uni-bonn.de!zeus!fasten
- From: fasten@zeus.informatik.uni-bonn.de (Bernhard Fastenrath)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc,comp.sys.amiga.programmer
- Subject: Re: toy operating systems, like AmigaOS
- Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.misc,comp.sys.amiga.programmer
- Date: 13 Apr 1996 12:51:18 GMT
- Organization: Universit"at Bonn, Informatik Abt. II, R"omerstr. 164, 53117 Bonn
- Message-ID: <4ko806$obs@news.rhrz.uni-bonn.de>
- References: <skllsf.984983.4.5@groomlake.mil>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: zeus.informatik.uni-bonn.de
- X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
-
- Duanne Barry (dbarry@groomlake.mil) wrote:
-
- : I've just spent the last 2 months coding a large and complex algorithm
- : on a Unix box (Sun Sparc 10).
-
- : I've have made hundreds of critical bugs that generally
- : just cause the entire code to blow up (eg. memory overwriting, runaway
- : loops, etc). But never ever did any of my bugs actually crash the Unix box
- : (ie. it never needed a reboot) due to the lovely memory protection.
- Sure, for developers memory protection is more than nice. That's why I
- develop complex algorithms under unix :-)
-
- : This is completely different from coding on an Amiga 4000
- : (which i did for a few years), where a serious bug just takes out
- : the entire machine (thus significantly lengthening coding time)... from
- : this experience, AmigaOS looks like a complete toy to me, even though the
- : machine has a MMU available... same goes for the current AppleOS, which
- : has a pretty outside (the GUI) but garbage inside.
- Well, that makes MacOS the same sort of toy. Motorola and (latest news)
- even IBM have licensed this toy. And IBM has licensed MacOS even though
- they have a PPC OS/2, which they have put on ice. What does this tell
- us about the chances of AmigaOS? Memory protection isn't half as important
- as you think.
-
- : Although the GUI under Unix (X-Window System) does not have the
- : consistency as AmigaOS or AppleOS (ie. almost every application has
- : different style buttons, scrollbars, etc.), it is more than liveable due
- : to the almost complete robustness of Unix underneath.
-
- : Now I am contemplating buying a cheap Pentium box to run Linux (freeware
- : Unix) or waiting until PowerMac has Linux available for it. I know Amiga
- : has NetBSD available for it, but the hardware (ie. the 4000) is just
- : an outdated piece of slow junk (ultra slow graphics and a slow processor).
- : Upgrading it is more expensive than buying a new Pentium box.
- At the moment this is true.
-
- : (btw, WordPerfect for X-Win has been available for some time now)
- And StarOffice for Linux will be available for free next month. Just
- forget WordPerfect.
-
- : So, to conclude this monologue, in my view the Amiga will not be taken
- : seriously until it has fast hardware and a robust operating system...
- : I don't see this happening for at least 2 years unless someone ports
- : Linux to the upcoming PowerAmiga (if it ever comes out).
- Linux for PowerAmigas won't take very long. There'll be PPC Linux versions
- for Firepower, PowerStack, BeBox and Macintosh so it won't be much work
- to get an Amiga port.
-
- --
-
- _|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_///_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
- _| Bernhard Fastenrath /// http://titan.cs.bonn.edu/~fasten/ : _|
- _| fasten@cs.bonn.edu \\\/// - XWorkbench 0.2 (Amiga Workbench for X11) _|
- _| fasten@shw.com \XX/ - Ext2 filesystem 0.5b for AmigaDOS, 0.3 _|
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-
- Hi, I'm not a signature virus. Why don't you just copy me into your signature?
-