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From: frank@rover.uchicago.edu (Frank - Hardware Hacker - Borger)
Subject: Re: Vote on the Best OS
Message-ID: <10FEB199410231006@rover.uchicago.edu>
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41
Sender: news@uchinews.uchicago.edu (News System)
Reply-To: frank@rover.uchicago.edu
Organization: Joint Center for Radiation Therapy
References: <2jb6ho$eag@zip.eecs.umich.edu>
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 1994 16:23:00 GMT
Lines: 45
In article <2jb6ho$eag@zip.eecs.umich.edu>, gord8790@gmi.edu (Da Young Genius) writes...
>--------------------------------------------------------------
>I really miss the computer with the BASIC interpreter as the
>primary operating system. Forget the P5 and UNIX, go back to
>the Commodore 64.
You don't really need that. What you need are (1) multi-tasking,
(2) capability of calling other programs from within your favorite
language, (be it basic, fortran, whatever,) and (3) easy hooks from
your program to the guts of the system.
A few reasonable systems have had that for years, (at least RSX on
PDP11-s has been able to do that for about 18 years.) Some sample
code follows...
....
45 ! call system program to mount the tape
b=0 : call "SPAWNB"("MOU MM:/CHA=[FOR,ATCH]",b)
(The mount tape command is passed to the system, and the
success/failure status is returned in variable b.)
...
200 ! issue system directive to read the tape lable block
201 dp%(0)=3+8*256 : dp%(1)=oct("1000") : dp%(2)=7 : dp%(3)=7+50*256 :
call "GETADR"(ds%(0),dp%(4)) : dp%(5)=0 :
call "GETADR"(bu&(0),dp%(6)) : dp%(7)=80 : call "DIRECT"(dp%,st%)
(The system call reads the tape block containing the tape label
to identify the tape, and determine which disk to back up.)
Well, you get the idea.
When I back up my PC, I have to go thru a whole bunch of pull down
menus to erase the previous backup, select all the files, give the
tape a name, do the backup etc. It almost takes longer to go through
all the steps to set up the backup, than to do the backup itself.
Its even worse to schedule one. THIS IS STUPID.
When I back up our PDP11, I put a tape in the tape drive and GO HOME,
and in the morning I have a fresh backup tape. THIS IS SMART.
Frank R. Borger - Physicist ___ "Maybe thith ith Godth way of telling
Michael Reese - U of Chicago |___ me to thape-up...or maybe God ith angry
Center for Radiation Therapy | |_) _ with me... or maybe God juth hath a
net: Frank@rover.uchicago.edu | \|_) weird thenth of humor." Grimm the dog,
ph: 312-791-8075 fa: 791-2517 |_) (with his tongue frozen to a fire-plug)