From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] Crazy idea... or a new project? From: "rob pike" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="upas-jumfgglhkmjdbxuhkkmhhbmmgt" Message-Id: <20001124004132.72D0C199E9@mail.cse.psu.edu> Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 19:41:29 -0500 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 30ec305e-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --upas-jumfgglhkmjdbxuhkkmhhbmmgt Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit That's a little simplistic. The x86 is a lousy architecture, and you're right about the compilers etc. But all those lousy drivers, VGAs, USB floppies, it goes on and on. Are any two the same? I doubt it. That's the horror of PCs, yet is a perhaps unavoidable consequence of the history that made the PC dominant (c.f. the Mac). The PC kernel for Plan 9 is huge because of all the drivers it must have to run on all devices. Sure we could have (and perhaps should have) loadable device drivers, but that is a solution to a problem that shouldn't exist. -rob --upas-jumfgglhkmjdbxuhkkmhhbmmgt Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Disposition: inline Received: from plan9.cs.bell-labs.com ([135.104.9.2]) by plan9; Thu Nov 23 19:06:21 EST 2000 Received: from mail.cse.psu.edu ([130.203.4.6]) by plan9; Thu Nov 23 19:06:20 EST 2000 Received: from psuvax1.cse.psu.edu (psuvax1.cse.psu.edu [130.203.20.6]) by mail.cse.psu.edu (CSE Mail Server) with ESMTP id 3B32419A05; Thu, 23 Nov 2000 19:06:10 -0500 (EST) Received: from plan9.cs.bell-labs.com (plan9.bell-labs.com [204.178.31.2]) by mail.cse.psu.edu (CSE Mail Server) with SMTP id EF643199EE for <9fans@cse.psu.edu>; Thu, 23 Nov 2000 19:05:09 -0500 (EST) From: "Russ Cox" To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] Crazy idea... or a new project? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-Id: <20001124000509.EF643199EE@mail.cse.psu.edu> Sender: 9fans-admin@cse.psu.edu Errors-To: 9fans-admin@cse.psu.edu X-BeenThere: 9fans@cse.psu.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.0rc1 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu List-Id: Fans of the O/S Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans.cse.psu.edu> List-Archive: Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 19:05:08 -0500 I don't agree about the x86. Sure it's an ugly chip. Sure it and its PC hosts are complicated. But the bootstrap code and the compiler are written. In Plan 9, it's no different to write applications for the x86 than it is to write them for any other architecture. Russ --upas-jumfgglhkmjdbxuhkkmhhbmmgt--