[Coco] OS-9 observations...

[Nick Marentes]

Frank, you nailed it. They are my conclusions precisely.

What we need is an OS-9 Level 3 (or 4) that addresses the problems of 
Level 2 and has a new focus towards applications and better use of 
available RAM rather than embedded controllers.

How many CoCo users use a 6809 based embedded controller nowadays anyway?

The "new boot per application" is a very restrictive methodoligy which 
again, suited the embedded controller environment.

I'm not critisizing OS-9, I believe OS-9 was a success at what it was 
primarily designed to do. It's when we try to use it as a general 
purpose OS to run various applications that it's weaknesses are 
highlighted and many see it as too hard to use in comparison to other OS's.

As I've said, "OS-9 is not for me". I've tried it and it doesn't satisfy 
MY expectations.

Nick


On 14/11/2014 12:05 AM, Frank Swygert wrote:
>
> For today that is correct, and even "back in the day" it was. OS-9 was 
> written as a robotic control system. It was all command driven and 
> expected to be embedded in a controller. It's modular and flexible 
> enough to make a desk-top system out of it, but that wasn't the 
> original purpose. Back in the day the problem was limited memory. With 
> limited user space in a 64K machine by the time you wrote a kick-butt 
> program you had no space to use it. Not so bad with games (assuming 
> you could get it all in the user space), but applications had little 
> working space. That's why Frank Hogg heavily promoted FLEX -- until 
> the CoCo3 came along. With 128K (or better, 512K!) you had a little 
> room! OS space for drivers and such was still limited, but there was 
> enough working space to make productive programs more usable.
>
> The flexibility is a limiting factor though, along with the limited 
> system space. Drivers have to be loaded in that limited system space, 
> so you can't always have all the drivers you need for a program. The 
> only effective way to use OS-9 with several different programs is to 
> create custom boots for each that has the necessary drivers and 
> deletes unneeded drivers so there is enough system room. Having to 
> reboot the computer when you switch programs can be a nuisance, 
> especially if you would like to use the windowing capability of OS-9 
> and keep more than one program open at a time.
>
> So it's not a modern OS. It's not running on a modern computer either. 
> If you're running a CoCo you have to realize that the hardware is the 
> limitation, not the OS. OS-9/68K machines don't have the limitations 
> the CoCo does. They have a lot more system space. The limitation for 
> system space is the fact that the 6809 is still an 8 bit 
> microprocessor, and the 8 bit architecture limits addressable system 
> space. OS-9/68K was expensive -- it was intended as an industrial 
> system like the original 8-bit OS-9. There were of course a few 
> machines made with OS-9/68K, but the cost of the OS was part of why 
> they didn't catch on, that and the fact that they weren't compatible 
> with any of the CoCo OS-9 software, so a new software library would 
> have to be created. Then you're back to square one -- few good 
> applications that weren't very expensive. At least there was no 
> problem with space to load drivers...
>
>