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Re: Codename G-OS



Glenn Saunders (krishna@primenet.com) wrote:
: The mortal Lazy Bone wrote:
: :       Platform                CPU
: :       Amstrad CPC             Z80
[...]
: :       Commodore 64/128        6502
[...]
: :       MSX (various)           Z80

: This much I can understand since they are all similar.
Except for the CPU. most have a Z80, while the C64 has a 6502.

: a CPU with enough features to support preemptive multitasking.

Well, even a 6502 can do that. Look at
http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/~fachat/csa

: None of the 8-bit systems would qualify, and the overhead of a HAL is
: probably too much for a 64K RAM system anyway, that you'd get more
: mileage out of their native OSs.

That, on the other hand is true IMHO. If you could write a 
HAL and p-code interpreter for an 8 bit machine, it would eat
up already quite some amount of memory. For the application not much 
would be left. Probably a single-tasking OS would work.
But running a multitasking system like that, with an appropriate
speed? 

Well, anybody said that real multitasking would be impossible on a
6502, and I (amongst others) did it, so I should probably 
shut up. But I think that only precompiled code would run well
on an 8 bit machine. And then you still have to handle relocation
and linking (shared libs) questions.
(See also on my homepage for the OS/A65 operating system for a 
filesystem standard for 6502 programs.)


Andre

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