EnigmA Amiga Run 1997 April/EnigmA AMIGA RUN 17 (1997)(G.R. Edizioni)(IT)[!][issue 1997-04][EAR-CD].iso/Recent1/ZCD.lha/Listino/Announces/pOS.txt

Text File | 1997-01-06 | 15KB | 326 lines

pOS introduction - from ProDad Home Page http://www.prodad.de

pOS is a brand-new operating system in a future oriented concept.
In contrast to most other OS, pOS doesn't keep up left-overs from the past
or "inflated" sources. It is built entirely from scratch,  thus designed
for effectiveness in CPU and memory usage and offering new innovative
features.  Pre-emptive multitasking HAL-principles and intuitive user
interface elements provide for an effective use of the hardware - just as
an operating system is intended to be.

No matter if you want to use it in set-top boxes, or as a replacement
(maybe supplement?) for existing operating systems, pOS will convince you
with its logically structured layout, and with approved as well as with
innovative features.

At first, pOS will be released in a version for 68k-Amigas (including the
»Draco«) and in a version for PowerPCs. The system can be installed
parallel to the usual Amiga-OS, a feature that is of major importance,
especially for developers. Of course t is also possible to run pOS as a
stand-alone solution.

Even the use in set-top boxes is possible without any problem, due to its
complexity. Being under development for two years now, first applications
based on this innovative operating system will be available in 1997 - for
use in set top boxes or PCs, for video editing, for videophones, for easier
and quicker processing of orders in large publishing companies, for
internet and other online applications, for watching TV programs ....,
several manufacturers are already interested or are co-operating with
proDAD, since the complexity and modern conception both offer an
environment that is unique, inexpensive and easy to use.

The fact that this OS may run simultaneously with existing operating
systems, and its interfaces to the outer world make it easy for developers
to port software to it and also enables the user to draw profit from any of
the new advantages pOS offers, with usual software still being fully
functional.

Special pOS Advantage: AMIGA

pOS has been developed on the AMIGA platform, its conception makes it the
ideal computer for setting up a project like this.
Furthermore, the AMIGA and its Amiga-OS make it possible to easily run both
operating systems in multi-tasking. This is why the development of pOS has
been done with the usual tools on Amiga-OS-side. This is an important
benefit for any pOS developer as well as for the user,  who is still able
to use software that has not been further developed under Amiga-OS, while
running innovative new applications with all those innovative features
under pOS. Thus, the entry or change to this operating system is done
very smoothly.


Origin and Preconditions

As proDAD is a traditional Amiga software company, we kept track of the
AMIGA development process for quite a long time now, hence we know about
the requirements of users and developers. Commodore already thought of
certain innovative things. But - as we all know - these announcements
did never (or only partially) come true (Think about RTG or "datatypes"!).
As developers, we found these things useful for our applications, their
(non-)realisation, however, did not help us much... This is why pOS is to be
considered as the up-to-date base for the realisation of such and many
other individual wishes, inside as well as outside proDAD.

Major drawbacks of Amiga-OS, primarily based on the missing of further
development, provide another good reason to come up with a project like
pOS. Things like the inflexible graphics system, outdated printer drivers,
the lack of integrated network capability, and so on have lead to
pseudo-standards and thus have caused confusion. Here as well, we designed
a concept from our point of view as a software developer. The reason is
simple: if WE have to face with additional efforts, all the OTHER developers
will face the same problem - all of us more or less have to share the same
sad lot. This is why we now try to improve the environmental conditions.


Compatibility

Compatibility is often considered very important. Other examples, however,
have shown that user-level compatibility mainly causes disadvantages rather
than advantages, especially since disadvantages are ported to a new OS as
well. This is we try to stay compatible in a different way, i.e. on the
stage of the developer.

Thanks to a 2/3 compatibility to the Amiga-OS, any software written in
standard ANSI C or C++ will run under p-OS sloightly modified after just
one single compiler pass. This makes things easy, especially for AMIGA
software developers

Haage&Partner in Rosbach, Germany, provides the corresponding compiler
environment with Power-PC-option. So why creating software for PowerPC from
scratch as long as the OS is still emulated and slows down everything?

For porting your existing 68K-software to pOS, you can still use your usual
environment, even for cross porting from AmigaOS. All that is needed in
addition is the supplement kit available from the developer support.  With
pOS, already the current version of a software product will be enhanced by
new features such as speed or look and feel by only one single compiler
pass.

The user just updates and he or she will be excited by the new performance
of the product! During this time, the developers may already integrate the
pOS innovations in some applications and may improve the software, simply
by using OS-features.

If you finally want to port to a different platform, this implies just a
small effort for the developer.

With the multi-platform concept it doesn't matter which platform the
application is to be written on but on which platform pOS is presently
running...  Multi-platform concept for pOS also means multi-processor
compliance - pOS and its applications are ready even for this technique,
which is currently getting more and more practicable,


Basic Ideas

With multi-platform technology in the OS, a bigger market opens
  for developers (more sales, less effort)
  for users (less isolation, better orientation)
  for press (more potential readers)

Developing software becomes more attractive again, no platform (and its
users) have to be excluded, the scope of users is simply enlarged

Platforms beyond the mainstream, users and developers for such markets
could feel a push, due to concentration on the most important precondition
for success (besides the hardware) - on the uniform OS, a clean base for
developers and users.

The machine equipped with the best hardware will show its actual
performance. A reliable comparison will now be possible since the basis of
the application will always be the same. A computer with e.g. high end
graphic performance will then show its strength and can be compared to
other computers in a sensible way.

Multitasking And Communications

The best advantage of all, pre-emptive multitasking, has been further
optimized in pOS and some technical extras have been added, which are
appreciated not only by the user but also by developers. An example: in pOS
all frequent task synchronisation
is controlled via semaphores. This reduces CPU impact. Furthermore, a rule
has been established, stating that a process or task the user is currently
working in may always obtain the highest priority. Due to semaphore
hierarchies the risk of "Deadlocks" as also been almost thoroughly
eliminated. In addition to "ordinary" tasks, pOS offers "QuickTasks" which
are executed almost three times as fast.


Network Capabilities

Network capability is already granted by the operating system and therefore
much easier to configure. This turns it easier e.g. for third-party
manufacturers of communications software to make applications for the
connection to global or local networks.
Additionally, it is much easier to put up teleconferencing projects via
wide area networks. An example might be the joint constructing of a
graphical object on different terminals, a procedure which is supported by
the integrated RTG-features. It is ossible to edit one single project on
three different computers, while one computer (equipped with PPC, for
instance) simultaneously renders this object. As a result, internal
processes are subdivided and co-ordinated in a most effective way, hardware
utilisation and user convenience are achieved on a very high level.
Sharing of peripherals and data are other possibilities that are made
accessible and easy-to-use by the built-in networking resources. Also the
OS networking integrity makes configuring much easier for the user.


Graphics Display / RTG

pOS automatically adjusts the graphic output parameters to the output media
by means of a library. As a side effect, graphic output has (in contrast to
the AMIGA-OS) become 24-BIT deep and considerably faster. Monitor support
has turned much more flexible as well, e.g. several monitors may be used
for one user-interface at the same time. The output media may also be a
part of a network or even a virtual-reality component. The best thing for
the programmer: The OS (not the developer) figures out whic type of
hardware to use and how to configure it. This way software development has
become much easier for graphics as well, supporting the principle of
consequent use of available hardware.



Optical Appearance

User convenience, GUI functionality and optical appearance (based on
AmigaOS) have been improved. However, the new graphical elements and
features are designed for low resource impact. No loss of performance due
to special GUI features will arise.

Examples:
Animated menus and gadgets provide more clearness. Finally, the windows can
be moved around with the content visible. The Shell window has a slide
control to make earlier outputs visible again and you can browse through
the command history buffer with a pop-up function. All of these features
improve convenience and clearness to the user. Some of these features are
optionally also available for the AMIGA-OS, however, the already mentioned
disadvantages of the outdated concept, the resulting loss in speed and
compatibility problems show up again. As mentioned: We try - thinking as a
developer - to provide a uniform, reasonable and future-oriented framework
for other developers and last but not least for the user.



DOS

Compared to AMIGA-OS, DOS is reworked for effectiveness in speed and memory
usage. The BCPL-System has been removed, too. Directory scan as well as
read and write operations have thus been considerably accelerated. Data
compression and decompression during read and  write is a built-in feature
of pOS. By the way, the partitioning limit is 1.09*10^12 bytes (1 terabyte)
which in contrast to most other operating systems impressively underlines
the up-to-date concept. For multimedia and huge databases this is an
advantage which will get more and more important in the future.



Development Under pOS

Well, we will point out some (to name just a few...) of the advantages
arising for the programmers:

  99% compatible libraries and devices for comfortable porting to pOS;
      class administration by OS kernel

  class derivation possible at run time

  economic object administration concerning memory partitioning and
                                                   runtime overhead

  class instances are filtered by the kernel and sent to the class dispatcher.

Advantage: easier programming and therefore less vulnerability

Graphic flexibility with RTG:

specific adjustment to any output media via RTG-library that controls
different levels of graphics display, from simple graphic operations
(without clipping) up to the full integration of the graphic features
needed. This allows quick processing at low optimisation or full
hardware-related programming without compromise at maximum performance.
more flexible monitor support, e.g. multi-monitor system for a larger
working area and therefore better overview (provided by RTG)

subdivision of graphic areas or even mouse positioning when using several
monitors is done by the operating system (RTG)

Support of simple-refreshed windows enhanced through simpler and faster
clipping routines. The refresh of an already repeatedly clipped area is
supported and promoted by high-performance OS-routines (too complicated in
the past).

pOS supports graphics conversion in application programs (colours, sizes).
Each application edits any kind of graphics data in true color and leaves
the subsequent display procedure to the OS. Depending on the graphics
output device (true color scre n, 256 color screen, network, printer, ...)
the appropriate driver will automatically do the conversion!

Since pOS may run in an AMIGA-OS window (RTG!) the question of porting to
pOS is really simple. This turns the developing very easy. As a nice
side-effect, this ability also serves the user who - with the parallel use
of e.g. Amiga-OS and pOS - obta ns a smooth switch from old to new software
versions...

Super-Bitmap much easier e.g. various gadgets can be placed on a super
bitmap which can be scrolled. Coordinate transformations for display and
message systems are completely processed by the operating system.

Several layers in one window (daughter layers).
Advantage: The OS could, for example, separate a gadget bar from a text
input box. This serves the graphic performance because manual switching can
be omitted.

object-oriented GUI
all visible elements such as text, graphics, animations etc. are objects.
These objects can be combined object-oriented which provides for e.g. the
very easy creation of a menu item with integrated animation (modular
design). elf-layouting gadgets being proportionally font sensitive, i.e. no
co-ordinate-programming but hierarchies.

special debug-version of pOS:
Software development is much easier since many errors are already analysed
and displayed before the system may crash. With this, errors are easily
determined and recorded.


pOS provides a standard-prefs program. All changeable data is edited via
libraries in pOS-Prefs. Hence redundant functionality for each setting is
not required. Everything is administered by pOS-Prefs, so that a special
settings program only has to ork on its own private data.

Simpler debugging of programs - an example:

source fragment:
{
  ...
  const CHAR *name;
  pOS_FileHandle *FH;
  name=NULL; // *** NULL pointer
  if(FH=pOS_OpenFile(NULL,name,FILEHDMOD_Read)) {
    pOS_CloseFile(FH);
  }
  ...
}

Output in the debug window:

Current: Task=0x7276170 Name=ShowDebug
Error: |pOS_OpenFile| {rp const CHAR*}
var: |name| = 0x0

better software with better debugging, full performance as soon as
programming of the application has been completed.

The programmer is supported by the kernel, which is to improve quality of
the software and to significantly reduce developing time.

Other OS prefer the other, less effective way:
runtime security by large-scale crash protection, the consequence
more overhead:
 loss of runtime performance
 need of extensive computing capacity
 extensive memory requirements

If these facts seem impressive to you, take a closer look at the developer
program (enclosed or available at proDAD).