🚀 go-pugleaf

[I've got an Amiga, which has the multi-tasking, non-protected "problem".]

>> Now, with OS/9 or Minix or even Micro RTX (ever heard of the Beckemeyer
>> MT C-Shell?) , you of course don't have the directory problem but you still
>> have the risk of one process interfering with another and in practice i find
>> this unacceptable.  Maybe Amiga users get used to booting their machine when
>> one program goes wild, but that is not my idea of a usable operating system.

Ah, but what is usable is very flexible. I'm willing to put up with
stray crashes (but see below) in return for a multi-tasking OS, and
wouldn't go back to CP/M in any flavor except at gunpoint. I'm willing
to put up with having a program being debugged crash things that
aren't, in return for being able to run those other things. For
instance, right now I have 4 running user tasks (I stopped loading the
workbench a while back, otherwise it'd be 5). The ability to drop back
into a CLI to check something relating to what I'm typing now is
invaluable.

>> Many times i have been running simultaneous foreground/background processes
>> and had memory trashed in one process because of a stray pointer (from that
>> 1 last bug) in the other process.

Yes, but 99+% of the times it happens to me, it's been during program
development. The following reboot is more painful, but the environment
it's rebuilding is more complicated than CP/M-68K.

Of course, I'd like to have an MMU. I'd also like to have a 68020 @
25MHz. Nobody seems to be building boxes in my price range with those
features, so I'll live with what I've got.

Bottom line: If you can get hardware/software that does what you want
with an MMU, grab it. If not, I'll take a multi-tasking OS w/out
protection. I won't recommed that someone do development on one while
other people are trying to use it for work, though. I'd be leary of
suggesting it for any kind of multi-user work at all.

	<mike