Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: net.micro.68k Subject: Re: Holy Holistic, Batman! (OS-9 and the art of being holistic) Message-ID: <6140@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Thu, 14-Nov-85 16:26:30 EST Article-I.D.: utzoo.6140 Posted: Thu Nov 14 16:26:30 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 14-Nov-85 16:26:30 EST References: <576@sftig.UUCP> <1001@bnl44.UUCP> <11467@rochester.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 15 > As I said, UNIX-sheltered. Try to comprehend I/O devices that have no > association with the disks. An "inode" is not required for OS-9 pipes or > any other device, and therefore needs no disk access to open such.... How about OS-9-sheltered? Try to comprehend that Unix file systems do not have to use any particular storage technology; in particular, they do not need to be on disks. It's easy to have them in RAM, almost as easy to have them in ROM. Furthermore, Unix pipes do not have to be implemented as files at all -- that's just the way most Unixes happen to do them. On the system I'm writing this on, pipes live in a little RAM filesystem; the resulting improvement in speed is substantial. We haven't bothered bypassing the file machinery completely because we no longer have much incentive to. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry