🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <41353n$80j@acmex.gatech.edu>, gt6977b@prism.gatech.edu (David
Charles Leblanc) wrote:

:edodge@teleport.com (Edward Dodge) writes:
:
:>32-bit OS?
:
:>Is that the "new" buzz-word going around now that the
:>Bill-Gates-medicine-show is back in town?
:
:>*Yawn!*
:
:>Mac OS has been 32 bit clean since 5 years ago...
:
:How long has the Mac been multitasking?
:
:How long has it protected any apps from one another?
:
:-- 
:David Charles LeBlanc
:Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
:Internet: gt6977b@acme.gatech.edu

Why don't we just all agree that the Mac has a poor, but very usable, form
of multitasking. We could also agree that it doesn't have memory
protection which causes system crashes and needlessly complicates software
development.

It needs both. Apple agrees and is busy working on Copland. We could also
agree that true multi-tasking and VM has been around for a long time.
Certainly since VMS and the VAX, which significantly pre-date the Mac. I
can still remember reading (way before 1984) DEC literature talking about
the advantages of re-entrant code. Apple engineers must have been aware of
it's advantages, but just couldn't see that far into the future. If they
had just used re-entrant code in the Toolbox, we surely would have had VM
and true multi-tasking years ago. Big mistake, but maybe not as bad as
IBM's 640K error.

Look, most OS designs revolve around currently available target hardware.
Engineers (people) just have a hard time planning in an environment where
things are growing at the rate of 20 to 40% per year. Just imagine a CPU
clock speed of 1 or 2 GHz; even MS Word 6.0 may look small and quaint in 5
years. When the basics of the MacOS was designed, current lending edge uP
hardware was the 68000. Certainly, the MacOS designers were aware of VMS
and VAX. They were just short-sighted and probably couldn't imagine a
desktop computer 100 times more powerful than a VAX 11/780.

BTW, I think the MacOS is the nicest around, but it definitely has these
two flaws. 

Tom