From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!zeppo!wheps!eagle!mhtsa!ihnss!ihuxl!ignatz
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Title: Re: Whither-goest-UNIX?
Article-I.D.: ihuxl.197
Posted: Sat Jun 26 15:58:31 1982
Received: Mon Jun 28 08:26:23 1982

	John Nervik recently submitted a response to my query, "Whither-
goest-UNIX?", which was an intelligent, informative, and welcome response.
However, I will take minor exception with his position that the dinosaur
execs I used as examples were, essentially, created with the whistles-and-
bells already installed. This is, of course, very much true in most cases;
esp. for the G. E. GECOS exec. But I will staunchly maintain that there is
a continual tendency to load more and more functions into an exec, usually
centering in expanding the file system capabilities. I will offer only one
concrete example, as this is the one I am most recently intimately familiar
with (I hate to admit it...): Honeywell's Level 6 GCOS. Note that this is
NOT the original G. E. GCOS (originally GECOS..); it was redesigned and
rewritten in the late '70s (I believe...it was before my involvment) by
HISI (a bane on their house...) for the new, fantastic, modular Level 6.
It was, in concept, very much a dinosaur-type exec, with strong Multics
influence. Most particularly, the exec was intended to offer a very detailed
and powerful file system, with sequential, direct-access, indexed, etc.
files; intelligent comm protocol handlers; and a sophisticated set of
exec services, access control, and a shell-like (but much more restricted)
command interpreter. How close HISI came to this ideal (or, more accurately,
how far they fell short) is a matter best discussed over many bheers; just
look at where the Level 6 lives in the latest Datamation survey of micros.
Many of the subsequent releases of GCOS 6 were to fix glitches and scrups.
But, nevertheless, they are also packing even more into the exec. Specifically,
a database (IDS II) has been grafted into the file system format; partitioned
disks for the SMs; more exec calls. They intend--if they can remain solvent--
to pack even more into it in the future. Note that all of this is in the
exec--to us, the kernel. Thus, while it is true that there were lots'n'lots
of whistles in the original, there is also quite a trend to continue to
pack it in later. And many of the suggestions for UNIX show a similar,
if possibly unconscious, tendency to assume this is the way to go. Call my
nattering a cautionary tale...

Incidentally, UNIX wasn't a "shut 10 programmers in a room and take what
results...". According to Ritchie and Thompson (Bell System Technical
Journal, July-August 1978, Vol. 57, No. 6, Part 2, "The UNIX Time-Sharing
System"), UNIX was "...not designed to meet any predefined objectives. The
first version was written when one of us (Thompson), dissatisfied with
the available computer facilities, discovered a little-used PDP-7 and
set out to create a more hospitable environment." They go on to relate how
others got interested and began to help. But it is, essentially, the brain-
child of one man. I might suggest--probably superfluously, considering the
audience--that the quoted issue of the BSTJ is a classic, and should be
owned, and well-thumbed, by anyone who claims to be a unix-wizard/guru/user.

				Dave Ihnat
				Analysts International Corporation
		(contracted at)	Bell Telephone Labs, Naperville (Indian Hill)