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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!lucy.swin.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au!news.apana.org.au!cantor.edge.net.au!news.teragen.com.au!news.access.net.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.easystreet.com!not-for-mail From: tedm@agora.rdrop.com (Ted Mittelstaedt) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: WABI and FreeBSD -- the cat's pajamas. ;) Date: 6 Mar 1997 05:12:24 GMT Organization: Cool Dudes Inc. Lines: 26 Message-ID: <5fljno$dpo$5@easystreet03> References: <33147622.41C67EA6@nortel.ca> <331711AE.18AB@center.uscs.com> <874tetb26c.fsf@phaedrus.uchicago.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: sunnet.portsoft.com X-Newsreader: WinVN 0.92.6+ Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:36672 In article <874tetb26c.fsf@phaedrus.uchicago.edu>, stephen farrell <sfarrell@phaedrus.uchicago.edu> says: > > >more info on WABI: http://www.sun.com/solaris/products/wabi/, >including the impressive list of supported (albeit win3.1) apps. > >but the downside: word is that WABI 3.0, which was to support win32, >has been canceled. Not suprising, because if I remember from the debates on the OS/2 newsgroups to fully support win32 requires giving access to the processor descriptor registers to the user-level programs, as well as ring 0. When you do that your operating system is at the mercy of your user software, which is not what Unix is all about. IBM got all the way to supporting Win32's up to version 1.25c under OS/2 before Microsoft added this extra bit to Win32. Since OS/2 comes from the same philosophy of making the operating system control the applications, this hosed IBM's plans for win32 support under OS/2 also. Maybe Intel will come out with a "super ring -1" or some such on their next version of processor, which will allow the operating system once again to control the programs running under it. Of course, knowing Microsoft, they will come out with a new API which will turn over control of the CPU to the user programs.