Re: [9fans] Is Plan 9 C "Less Dangerous?"

[Ethan Gardener <eekee57@fastmail.fm>]

On Thu, Sep 6, 2018, at 1:32 AM, Bakul Shah wrote:
> On Wed, 05 Sep 2018 07:42:52 -0400 Chris McGee <newton688@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Could you get away with a much simpler, smaller hardware design and still
> > run Plan 9 in a reasonable way? Maybe one side of the software/hardware
> > divide has to take on more complexity to help simplify the other side?
>
> Look at what Prof. Nicklaus Wirth did for Oberon.
> https://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/ProjectOberon/index.html

Oh I'd forgotten about Oberon! I started to look at it years ago, but assumed it was more complex than it actually is.  It's hard to believe primary development only lasted 4 years.  My point of contact with it was an OpenGL application with innovative culling of hidden objects.  It was perfectly smooth, no latency; not bad for an operating system roughly in the same class as Inferno.  One to put back on my to-do list.

>From the preface of P.O.System.pdf
> In spite of the small number of man-years spent on
> realizing the Oberon System, and in spite of its
> compactness letting its description fit a single book, it
> is not an academic toy, but rather a versatile
> workstation  system  that  has  found  many  satisfied
> and  even  enthusiastic  users  in  academia  and
> industry.


--
The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. -- Chaucer