🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3v6q0k$e6c@nyheter.chalmers.se>, Martin Nisshagen <d4nisse> writes:
|> beverins@aol.com (B E Verins) wrote:
|> >A dream OS would contain all of the best parts of all of the OS's out
|> >there, while doing away with crap. An example:
|> >
|> >Combine these ingredients and stir well for an unbeatable OS:
|> >
|> >Amiga's Pre-emtive multitasking
|> 
|> Who is rather primitive (no real multithreading and so on...)

???

I am not exactly sure how to respond to this post;
not having used threads, I have no experience with them,
but it is possible that threads are either embedded
cooperative multitasking within a single process
in a preemptive multitasking machine, or a workaround
around the expense of task-preemption.

There are user-level threading packages available for Unix.

And Plan 9 (as I understand it) will make fork()ing so cheap
you won't want to use threads. :-)

|> 
|> >Amiga's low memory overhead
|> 
|> My Psion pocketcomputer hass much less...

How much functionality does it have, though?

Certainly, the smaller the footprint, the better the O/S.
I think that's the point that beverins was trying to make.

|> 
|> >MS Win95 memory protection (to isolate crashes)
|> 
|> Win96 memoryprotection??? haha... maybe better than amigas but that
|> doesn't say much...

Win95 memory protection should be at least as good as Linux's
for Win32 applications, from what I've heard.
However, I cannot say for sure.  (Win16 should be problematical.
DOS applications probably are enclosed in their own little
world.)

But certainly it's better than the Amiga's (which had none
to speak of).

|> 
|> >Amiga & Mac 30 or more character filename limit
|> 
|> In Unix, NT and OS/2 You have at least 255...

One would hope that's enough.  Another poster in a different
post brought up the issue of "maximum pathname length" (as opposed
to "maximum filename length".  We could use something better
than Unix's 1024-character limit if we thought that a lot of
people would use very deep trees and very long names.

|> 
|> >Mac "look & feel"
|> 
|> Who's got the most boring look of all GUI (B&W, mostly 2D)!
|> 

That is easily fixed.  And it's not how it looks, but how it
feels, that may be important (e.g. does every application present
a consistent series of menus to the user?  does every application
behave consistently when certain keys, such as delete,
are pressed?)

|> >Amiga, MS Win95 Plug 'n Play (no need for configuration of add-ons)
|> 
|> Ok.

I'll agree to that!  ISA configuration is a pain in the IRQ.

|> 
|> >Amiga, Mac built in mouse control
|> 
|> Ha.. if You want to limit You to TWO or ONE buttons only...

Amiga can support 3 buttons.  Not many programs use
the middle mouse button though (with GfxBase's X server
being a rather significant exception).

I would personally go for 4 buttons...

|> 
|> >Amiga built in joystick control (gotta have those games)
|> 
|> I don't know the Amiga, I hope it has an analog joystick. otherwise...

Regrettably, it's not.  It's an Atari-compatible
joystick connector (and you know how primitive those are...)

|> 
|> 
|> I try to stay out of this type of discussion... but this was one of the
|> most stupid postings I ever seen...
|> 

And now for some other things to add to the dream OS:

- hierarchical windowing (Win95 and X both have this;
  Mac and Amiga do not)
- option to display graphics over the network (X)
- resource sharing (libraries, volumes, devices)
  between processes and nodes
- resource locking (semaphores)
- VM <=> file association [make a file look like
  virtual memory] (Unix)
- user interrupt (^C) always works (Unix)
- the ability to replace the default window manager
  (Win3.1, X)
- automatic resource deallocation upon program exit
  (Unix; Amiga did *NOT* have this as of 2.0)
- option for multiuser
- option for multiprocessor
- option for networking
- Amiga-like monitor database (i.e., the program can query
  the system for permissible display resolutions)
- A great multi-window text editor (Apollo/DOMAIN)
  (NOT like Edlin! :-) )

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------
eric_williams@mentorg.com
My views!