[Coco] origins of OS-9

[Frank Swygert]

Yep, just a little too close! ;>
I meant it as a generalization, not exact. I agree with you, MicroWare had a better position to start with -- already had their own OS to work from (and multi-user to boot!), and did a much more thorough job of it too. So the situation is indeed different, but there are some similarities. I bet MW was asked to make Basic-09 first, then took it a stop further by adapting RT/68 to the 6809 as well, rather than making B-09 stand-alone similar to ECB. If Motorola already knew about RT/68 and liked it, it would have been an easy sell. 

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Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 17:24:18 -0500
From: Aaron Wolfe <aawolfe at gmail.com>

Maybe I've gotten to close to the story, but the MS/IBM relationship
and the Motorola/Microware relationship don't seem very similar, nor
do the results.

In fact, MSDOS was exactly what I would expect from a company that
just needed a way to run/sell their Basic:  hastily aquired from a 3rd
party, hacked to just barely work and pushed out the door.

The situation behind OS-9 seems to  be different, and the results
speak for themselves.  Perhaps echos of this IBM/MS relationship are
what lead to statements like the one found on Wikipedia's Microware
page explaining OS-9 almost as an afterthought.

I don't think that was actually the case.  Microware already had an
advanced real time operating system (RT/68), in fact the DAVID article
Bob posted says that RT/68 is specifically why Motorola wanted to work
with Microware on Basic09.  I strongly suspect Microware had planned
an "RT/68 like" operating system for the 6809 since the very
beginning.  Motorola had it's vision of ROM based software
distribution at the time and this influence is plain to see in OS-9.
It is clearly a collaborative work, rather than something scrounged
together by one party to satisfy the other.

-- 
Frank Swygert
Publisher, "American Motors Cars" 
Magazine (AMC)
For all AMC enthusiasts
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