[rescue] FrameMaker FYI

[Dave McGuire]

   I had to snip this out and reply to it separately:

On Mar 26, 2004, at 1:45 AM, Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:
> If you can dig up some docs about how NT was -supposed- to be, you'd be
> impressed that such a system could come out of Redmond:
>
>   * Support for multiple runtime environments, fully-implemented in
>     userland so that you could run Unix, OS/2, Win32, Win16, or DOS
>     applications on the same kernel with the ability for the user to 
> add
>     more just by installing a driver.
>   * Wholly portable and written in C and Pascal, unlike the x86 
> assembly
>     speed hacks in Windows 9x.
>   * A microkernel design so that the same kernel-mode software can
>     support vastly different systems (SGI x86 vs Compaq SMP vs "white
>     box" PC) just by swapping in a HAL driver.
>   * Impossible for userland code (including drivers) to crash the 
> kernel
>     or the system (because memory access and MMU frobbing happens in 
> the
>     HAL).  In fact, there're only two special cases:
>      a) Any driver for any essential part of the console crashes and
>         cannot be restarted, the system performs a graceful shutdown.
>      b) Any portion of the storage system for the system partition
>         crashes, the system forces a graceful crash with memory dump.
>   * Kernel-deep threads, fifos, sockets, etc. all with enough memory
>     protection to keep a bug in, say, WinSock from stomping on the
>     kernel.

   You know what?  This is an OS that *I* would run.  Too bad they 
screwed the pooch.

         -Dave

--
Dave McGuire          "PC users only know two 'solutions'...
Cape Coral, FL          reboot and upgrade."    -Jonathan Patschke