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Re: Codename G-OS
- Subject: Re: Codename G-OS
- From: Glenn Saunders <krishna@primenet.com>
- Date: 1997/10/11
- Newsgroups: alt.c64, comp.sys.amiga.emulations, comp.sys.amstrad.8bit, comp.sys.apple2, comp.sys.atari.8bit, comp.sys.cbm, comp.sys.m6809, comp.sys.msx, comp.sys.oric, comp.sys.sinclair, comp.sys.tandy
- Organization: Primenet (602)416-7000
- References: <34394CFA.MD-0.198.zhulien@alphalink.com.au>
The mortal Lazy Bone wrote:
: Platform CPU
: Amstrad CPC Z80
: Amstrad PCW Z80
: Commodore 64/128 6502
: CP/M based 8080/Z80
: MSX based Z80
: ZX Spectrum Z80
: MSX (various) Z80
This much I can understand since they are all similar.
: Later targets:
: Amiga 680x0
: IBM Compatible 80x86
The PC is not abandoned.
How can you write for 8-bit systems and 16/32 bit systems at the same time
due to the limitations, especially in the 6502, in regards to facilitating
multitasking and memory management, not to mention throughput???
A hardware abstraction layer won't be able to get a C=64 to run a program
that requires at least an 030's worth of throughput and over 500K of
linear addressable RAM, not to mention 640x400x8-bit color graphics for
its GUI...
I think this is just darn silly.
Certain assumtions have to be made about the hardware. These days, the
assumtions would be:
at least 8-bit digital audio.
at least 640x480x16 colors (well, really 8-bit color but for ECS I'll be
understanding) with a 24-bit palette.
at least 50mhz 030 throughput which is already half of an 040/28 and many
many times slower than today's Pentiums. I can't think of an LCD any
lower than that. It would make anything CPU-hungry totally unusable.
at least 16mb linear addressable RAM.
a CPU with enough features to support preemptive multitasking.
No applications of any consequence would be able to be developed without
these assumtions...
Systems which could squeak by would be:
Amiga
Atari ST
68K MAC
386/486 PCs
Apple IIGS (slow as molasses, probably, but doable).
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.
--
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== Glenn Saunders http://www.lawguru.com/production/production.html ==
== krishna@poboxes.com http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/ ==
== Stale homepage @ http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/1698 ==
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