[Coco] origins of OS-9

[Aaron Wolfe]

On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 9:19 PM, James Hrubik <jimhrubik at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 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.
>

Maybe.. again it's not so clear.  Basic09's support of system calls is
not well integrated.  The "RUN SYSCALL" technique is actually pretty
generic and could have been tacked on after most the rest of the
language was complete.  I think I remember comments on the list before
wondering why SYSCALL was not part of RUNB.

OS-9 has deep support for Basic09 in that I-Code is one of only 4
defined values for the "language" field in a module header (defined
are: data, 6809 object code, basic09 i-code, pascal p-code).

It does seem that Basic09 was known when OS-9 was created, but OS-9
might not have been known (or well defined) when B09 was created.  I
think it's fair to say OS-9 knows more about B09 than the reverse, at
least.

>
> 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 mailing list
>>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
>>> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>>>
>>
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>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
>> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>
> Repeal 17 : Restore I-3
> -------------------------------
> http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jim-Hrubik/310505111557
>
>
>
>
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