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Re: Executor port to NeXTSTEP 486??!!



The work involved in doing an Executor for intel based hardware would have to be at least  
double the work of doing a motorola based implementaton.  At least on  the motorola box,  
you don't have to translate the machine code from one instruction set to the other.  You  
only have to make sure the instructions are "safe".  An intel port would require the creation  
of a virtual 68K machine on the intel world.  Consider, for example, the fact that the 68K  
boxes have a larger more orthogonal register set that would have to be mapped into the  
intel register space.  Also consider that all the bytes in an intel machine are stored in  
reverse order of that of a motorola box.  


In summary, the task of emulating a different OS is much simpler if the underlying  
processor maps to the emulated processor.

Then again, I don't wor for ictv.com so they may have a totally different answer.

<joe>

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Date:    Sat, 31 Oct 92 12:55 PST
To: ICTV.COM!EXECUTOR@UNMVAX.CS.UNM.EDU
From: ODCDRAG@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU
Subject: Executor port to NeXTSTEP 486??!!

Dear Mr. Matthews,

    I have been following the progress of your Executor project with
much interest for some months, being  on  the  NeXTmusic  Mailing  List.
Congratulations on the progress you've made so far.  I think that a high
priority  should  be  getting  the SCSI and serial ports to work (unless
you've already done that).  However, another new development is  on  its
way:

    I received email Oct. 14  from NeXT about the upcoming release of
NeXTSTEP 486 v.3.0, and called them in  Redwood  City;  they  said  that
information  about  it  would  not  be  available until after the COMDEX
conference, November 16-20 in Las Vegas.

    I am very much interested in both NeXTSTEP 486  and in finding out
if you folks at the Executor project are intending to make Executor  run
under  NeXTSTEP  486; since NeXT describes it as "a complete port of the
NeXTSTEP 3.0 software environment to Intel-based computers,  {with}  the
same  User  Interface, Development Environment, Applications, Networking
(NFS, NOvell, Appleshare), state-of-the-art color,  Mach  UNIX,  Display
Postscript,  3D  Renderman, etc.", it would seem that you should be able
to make it work without too much trouble.  Especially, the new operating
system has  object-oriented  driver  architecture  that  should  greatly
facilitate writing device drivers for the myriad peripheral cards in the
IBM-compatible world.

     As the October 14 email from NeXT states, in order to set up a
machine that has comparable performance to  NeXT  machines,  one  should
assume  that the Intel-based hardware is equipped with a complete set of
high-performance peripherals, including 80486DX or  DX/2  50  Mhz  board
with  processor-direct  graphics  system, EISA backplane, 32 bit LAN, 32
bit SCSI (-II), 16 bit sound,  high-performance  SCSI  disk,  etc.   You
folks  at  the Executor project should try to plan on your Executor port
so that it includes capability to work with all of the above  and  more,
if  (as  I  hope)  you do plan to port it.  NeXT claims that "a specific
NeXTSTEP  486  Hardware  Compatibility  Guide  will  be   available   in
November"; I hope that doesn't mean Nov.  1993!

     NeXT claims that there will be a DOS 5.0/Windows 3.1 (including DOS
"protected" mode/Win-16 mode) Compatibility  Package  that  will  enable
several  simultaneous DOS and/or Windows programs to run within NeXTSTEP
windows, taking "full advantage of the 486 microprocessor"; Win-32  mode
should  be  supported by mid-1993.  When one combines that with possible
Executor  capability,  one  can  begin  to  see  the  potentially   vast
versatility of such a machine.

     I'll look forward to your reply on these questions whenever you can
get around to it.  Thanks for all your good work so far!

    Robert Gaylord    <ODCDRAG@MVD.OSV.UCLA.EDU>