🚀 go-pugleaf

[I lifted this from an announcement in mod.conferences.  I think the questions]
[raised are relevant and might provoke some good discussion.  -DL             ]

     The availability of inexpensive and powerful hardware has brought personal
workstations into offices and laboratories.  As  we  move  towards  integrating
these systems, mainframes and PCs can communicate  with  each  other  to  share
data.  Similarly, CPU and I/O loads can be  distributed  onto  a  machine  most
suited to a particular task. 

     To date, the operating systems used on most of these new systems have been
ported versions of those used by timesharing minicomputers; e.g. UNIX and  VMS.
As the hardware continues  to  evolve,  the  operating  system,  being  tightly
coupled  to  hardware  technology,  must  also  evolve.   This  workshop   will
concentrate on issues which must be addressed in order to develop an  operating
system specifically tailored  to  the  workstation  environment.   Such  issues
include:

     1) Do workstations provide an environment which  differs  from  minis  and
	super-minis in ways that should be reflected in the operating system? 

     2) What lessons from the mainframe  world  can  be  applied  to  this  new
	hardware? 

     3) What is the impact and importance of  the  workstation  interconnection
	functionality and technology? 

     4) How does operating system methodology need to evolve to accommodate new
	generations of hardware? 

     5) How should applications make use of a workstation-based environment? 

     6) How should recovery be dealt with in these extended environments? 

     7) What are the appropriate software abstractions that should be presented
	to both users and applications so that synchronization and sharing  can
	be best accomodated? 

-- 
Darrell Long
Department of Computer Science & Engineering, UC San Diego, La Jolla CA 92093
ARPA: Darrell@Beowulf.UCSD.EDU  UUCP: darrell@sdcsvax.uucp
Operating Systems submissions to: mod-os@sdcsvax.uucp