🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <42kq36$aqq@gate.compart.fi>,
 Fredrik Sandstrom <fred@spider.compart.fi> writes:
> dons@olympus.net (Don Schmelling) wrote:
> 
> >Well the AmigaOS can multitask better than any Mac or IBM PC os can.
> 
> Watch Linux multitask and repeat that! Does AmigaDOS really multitask 
> better than Linux?

The Amiga's scheduling uses fixed priorities, meaning
that it tends to be more responsive to the single user
than the dynamic priorities provided by Unix and OS/2.
It also means that real-time guarantees can be made
about process response time.

Fixed priorities are of course completely unsuitable
for a multi-user machine, but that's not what the Amiga
is intended to be.

> >I think that IBM PCs are toys, and you know what, they will
> >continue to be toys until they can write a better os than AmigaDOS.
> 
> I've used AmigaDOS a couple of times very briefly. I'm not too impressed,
> but I'd like to try it out some more though. But knowing it lacks memory
> protection (yes - one program can bring the whole system down), multi-
> userness, networking and security, I would hardly call it a BETTER OS than
> Linux or Unices in general.

AmigaDOS is definitely not a better OS than Unix. OTOH,
Unix is definitely not a better OS than AmigaDOS either.
They are designed for entirely different things, and,
for what I use my Amiga for, I prefer it to some form of
Unix. As far as networking goes, the only thing it lacks
is applications (as in most areas); multiple users and
security are pretty much unsupported.

Memory protection would be very useful. However, no
matter how well it is implemented, it is bound to have
a significant overhead. It would be useful to be able
to turn memory protection on and off -- when running
only trusted software it could be turned off for extra
speed; when developing new software, or running dodgy
software, it could be turned on.

I very rarely have a need to turn virtual memory on --
if I used it more, the performance overhead of memory
protection would probably be less significant.


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 -- Duncan Grisby                                    --
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