Re: [NTLK] Linux PDA Similar to Newton

From: Matthias Melcher <mm_at_matthiasm.com>
Date: Sun May 31 2009 - 03:38:58 EDT

Am 31.05.2009 7:55 Uhr schrieb "Reilly001os@aol.com" unter
<Reilly001os@aol.com>:

> I side with Steve Wozniack's statement (in his
> book iWoz) that they should've fixed the classic Mac os. Sure the classic os
> had its problems and needed a major rewrite to offer a lot of modern features
> but I'll take those problems and limits over all the tons of backend stuff
> (bloat) that osx added on because of its roots in command line, posix
> compatiblity, and out right superfluous nature.

Not to repeat to much of what John said, but the Unix underbelly is the main
reason for me (and many many other developers) to support OS X.

Unix is not bloated by any means. Unix runs on embdedded devices with few
megabytes of RAM (yes, that is Megbytes, not Gigabytes). The command line
comes free by todays size standards.

"vim", one of the standard command line editors with its own macro language,
syntax highlighting, und hundreds of features is 2.7 Mbytes large, pretty
much exactly the same size as the icon graphics alone for "Address Book".
Most command line programs are no larger than 6 to 10 *kilo* bytes.

Posix compatibility is essential for current OS's or the US government will
not buy them. Microsoft slammed a more-than half-assed implementation of
Posix on Windows 98 already IIRC to not lose government contracts.

Next point: Unix was created from scratch with many users on a single
machine in mind. In the 70's, one 68030 CPU would serve 30 or 40 terminals.
Protecting one user's data from another was always highest priority whch ist
why you still today have a much harder time writing virusses for Linux or OS
X. The inner structures are very simple but extremely smart.

NewtonOS was designed with extreme hardware limitations and only one goal:
to make a great PDA. That goal was reached very nicely. But NewtonOS could
never be a desktop OS at all. It is missing the most basic things.
NewtonScript OTOH could have been very successful, but it was not meant to
go that route.

Matthias

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Received on Sun May 31 04:12:18 2009

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