[Coco] origins of OS-9

[James Hrubik]

It's there.

Some more, maybe muddying the waters?? from the BASIC09 Reference  
Manual, Page 1-2,

"THE HISTORY OF BASIC09

BASIC09 was conceived in 1978 as a high-performance programming  
language to demonstrate the capabilities of the 6809 microprocessor  
to efficiently run high-level languages.  BASIC09 was developed at  
the same time as the 6809 under the auspices of the architects of the  
6809.  The development project covered almost two years and  
incorporated the results of research in such areas as interactive  
compilation, fast floating point arithmetic algorithms, storage  
management, high-level symbolic debugging and structured language  
design.  These innovations give BASIC09 its speed, power, and unique  
flavor.

BASIC09 was commissioned by Motorola, Inc., Austin Texas, and  
developed by Microware Systems Corporation, Des Moines, Iowa.   
Principal designers of BASIC09 were Larry Crane, Robert Doggett, Ken  
Kapan, and Terry Ritter.  The first release was in February, 1980."

I would hazard a guess that the OS came before the language, because  
the language incorporates system calls.


On Mar 7, 2010, at 6:19 PM, Aaron Wolfe wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 9:54 AM,  <jdaggett at gate.net> wrote:
>> On 5 Mar 2010 at 1:44, Aaron Wolfe wrote:
>>
>>> I get that.  What I don't understand is what does this have to do  
>>> with
>>> how OS-9 went from being a support system for Basic09 to a full
>>> fledged operating system?  Is there some relevancy that I am  
>>> missing?
>>
>> Aaron
>>
>> I think you have the two flipped. You are putting Basic09 ahead of  
>> the OS.
>>
>
> I agree that is seems backwards, but there are several seemingly
> independent sources that state Basic09 did indeed come prior to the
> OS.  If you look in the other messages in this thread I've quoted a
> few of them.
>
>
>> from The Complete Rainbow Guide to OS9 page 4, the synopsis is  
>> that BothMicroware and
>> Motorola saw a need to bring multitasking/multiuser power of  
>> larger UNIX systems to the
>> smaller home computers. UNIX writtenin C was far to big for the 8  
>> bit computers. So it was
>> written in asembly.
>
> Is this book online any where?  I'd like to see that section if  
> possible.
>
>
>>
>> "Motorola layed down some tough criteria. They wanted an operating  
>> system that would
>> exercise every ounce of capability of the 6809. Several 16-bit  
>> registers and almost every
>> memory addressing mode available on a minicomputer made the job  
>> easier."
>>
>> The above quote from page 4 suggests that Motorola was the driver  
>> for the OS and that
>> basic and other languages and feature were secondary. Here is  
>> anothr quote to support that.
>>
>> "The company's goal was to sell mass-produced "software-on- 
>> silicon". Motorola wanted to
>> distribute their software in ROM ... chips."
>>
>> I would also suspect that the COCO was driven by Motorola  
>> considering that all the games
>> and applications were interchanged via the expansion port and a  
>> ROM pack. The driving
>> need of the home game market ws behind the COCO. Adding OS9 and  
>> Basic was to try and
>> capture the more sophisiticated hoem user. Motorola was producing  
>> their Exocrciser and
>> EXORcet units for the industrial/commercial and education market.
>>
>> james
>>
>>
>> --
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>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
>> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>>
>
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco

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