Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!polyslo.UUCP!dorourke
From: dorourke@polyslo.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.windows.news
Subject: Re: NeWS on the MacII - Finder version?
Message-ID: <8805070838.AA11025@polyslo.UUCP>
Date: 8 May 88 00:36:45 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 50

Thank your for the additional information.

Having worked with A/UX I can symapathise with the problems that you have
outlined.  I realize that A/UX is not perfect.  But then Unix is not all
that great to begin with.

I have had few problems porting my C code between compilers, although once
I move my code into Unix I abandon all hope of moving it back and forth
between enviroments.

As far as only running one application at a time, I didn't feel that was
the purpose of my original response.  As I understood it the person I
responded to was unaware of the fact that Apple has in fact choose a
windowing system for it's Unix.  It has selected X-Windows.  Now that
X-Windows in "standard" for A/UX that should clear the path for them to
implement a "friendly" shell to Unix.

If you want to run Mac Binary code, then do it under the Mac OS.  Running
it under Unix doesn't seem to be a bright idea.  I am not a big fan of
running different enviroments at the same time.  Although it's a good idea
it's not always what it's cracked up to be.

I am aware of the problems with doing Multi-tasking right now on the Mac.
And I also find it stupid that you can't have more than one task out-putting
to the screen at once.  Although, Unix is Multi-tasking and you can still
fork processes off that don't do screen I/O.  Addmittidly this is a Kludge,
but it's not completely unworkable.  When working with Ada on a Vax/11 750
it did allow more than one process to do output at the same time, but that
normally screwed up the screen so much that I only had one process doing
output anyways.  So you can't say that this problem is unique to the Mac.

A/UX has problems, I'll admit that.  But given the task that Apple had to
do they didn't do too bad in my opinion.  It's a start and I'm looking forward
to seeing the progress that the product makes.  But in my opinion if you
want a Unix workstation you should go with a Sun anyways.  But if you want
my real opinion, I dislike Unix and can't understand why someone would want
to take a beautiful machine like the Mac II and handicapp it with an OS from
the late 60's and early 70's who's major accomplishment was the advent of
character bases I/O so that you could tie up a CPU to do I/O all day long.
Many of the systems today running Unix are now triing to get away from that
character based model, and "improve" performance by doing the character I/O
at the workstation, and simply sending messages after the workstation has
already dealt with the User.  Seems kinda of a funny modification to an OS
who's claim to fame is how well it handles characters from the terminal.

Anyways, thank you very much for the information.  I will keep it in mind
when/if I make future postings regarding A/UX.  Let's hope Apple keeps 
making progress to the point that I can say I like Unix.

David