🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan4.095245.1@zodiac.rutgers.edu>, leichter@zodiac.rutgers.edu
writes:

|>In article <C08qF4.Knz@news.iastate.edu>, john@iastate.edu (John Hascall)
|>writes:
|>> }>The OS world is moving towards multithreading...
|>> 
|>> ...
|>> Perhaps the research world has been...
|>> But as far as (popular) commercially available OSes, it would seem not:
|>> 
|>>   MS-DOS:  not a chance
|>>      VMS:  nope
|>
|>The story for VMS is complicated, and an excellent illustration of why
|>"yes/no" questions can be misleading.

|>There's a spec for a supported true threads package for VMS (and OSF); I
|>don't think it's officially out yet for VMS, but it's been promised.

Well its been in the bookreader for ages, not yet got arround to giving it a
try. There is no instalation guide for it, so it looks like its in the basic
O/S.

Most of the routines are fully re-entrant, but for some C run time library stuff
you have to call a jacket routine (presumably it just sets up a mutex or
something).

|>
|>All of which makes Mr. Hascall's distinction:
|>
|>>      VMS:  nope
|>>     UNIX:  not yet
|>
|>rather curious.
|>
|>(BTW, the earliest thread package, complete in the modern sense, that I know
|>of in a commercial operating system was in VAX ELN, a real-time OS for VAXes
|>that DEC has sold since about 1983.)

Threads is going to be the stick that breaks Novell. AT&T dumped UNIX on them
because they knew they couldn't keep up. If you go for serious object oriented
stuff then threads are pretty well essential. Comparing OSF/1 and UNIX I can't
see much future for UNIX without a hell of a lot of work in a damn short time.


--

Phill Hallam-Baker