Paul Anderson wrote:
>
> Lane J. Bryson wrote:
>
>
> > I did. Prove it wrong on its own merits:
> >
> > "It just has to manage the memory, peripherals, and
> > hopefully do something useful to qualify under a strict definition,
> > which is all anyone can argue anyway."
> >
>
> What the hell kind of definition is that? According to your definition
> every device driver I've written is an Operating System. Are you sure
If they can, of themselves, do what I list above, which was for argument
a simple version of what you list below, then they are. However,
chances
are that they cannot, and therefore are not. Prove my definition wrong,
as I said, on it's own merit. I only add this: an OS should be provide
all these services on its own.
> that you are not a member of the Microsoft legal team?
huh?
> You, obviously,
> have no intricate knowledge of anything technical to make such a
> statement and call it a "strict" definition.
I'm rubber and you're glue...
What makes someone as "qualified" as you?
not time-- "old-timers" aren't always most qualified.
not position.
Only the truth and how well a person understands it makes a person
"qualified".
I don't say you're unqualified for a discussion about low-level
software.
But you are unqualified to make statements about my own experience and
qualifications for "Anything Technical". You know nothing about me.
> I would better say that the sole property of the Operating System itself
> is quite small. It must bootstrap the machine, arrange physical memory
> for the purposes of running its own functions and those that would be
> imposed upon it, allow for the creation of a filesystem of some sort
> (not that disks are necessary for this task) that is able to handle data
> in some format, and the core organization of peripherals and their I/O.
> Display, directories, device drivers, and applications are all seperate
> from the OS.
Agreed. Except that a file system (disks or no) is not necessary. It
should
only require a storage of some sort (a memory, filesystem, etc.)
If you read my posts, you would understand that, apart from the
filesystem
item I mentioned above, I said roughly what you did:
you said (minus filesystem item),"It must bootstrap the machine,
arrange physical memory for the purposes of running its own functions
and those that would be imposed upon it,[...] and the core organization
of
peripherals and their I/O."
I say, again, "It just has to manage the memory, peripherals, and
hopefully do something useful...." "...An OS should be provide
all these services on its own." (if you didn't understand this from what
I
said, please read the rest of my statements in these messages.)
We each indicate three basic points:
1. OS can be initiated and set up all these services itself.
("bootstrapping."
however, netware, for example, does this without bootstrapping per se.)
2. Memory management (you include a filesystem)
3. Peripheral management and I/O
so if we agree, and you say I'm incompetent, what does that make
you?
> There are many embedded OS's in smaller devices, and many mre to come,
> that have no display, nothing bundled, and you would not even know they
> were there.
> Your TV is one good example. Having worked for Philips at
> one point in time, I was amazed at the amount of programming that was
> done to run a TV set. You get the on screen menus and other info, all
> via-a-vis embedded chips. Whether or not these would fit into the
> definition of an OS is wholly dependant on their function. It is my
> suggestion that you go take a good course in OS theory at a local
> college and stop reading Windoze Magazine.
Clearly, this was exactly my point in my two fore-going posts.
It is my suggestion that you go take a good course in English at a local
college and re-read them.
Now, my point is not and never was to use bandwidth with a dumb little
argument of semantics. But the way people keep getting rudely corrected
for expressing correct ideas is really annoying.
I'm ready to drop it.
Are you?
Cheers,
lane
--
Lane J. Bryson Network Product Analyst
RULDS2 Interphase Corporation, Systems Analysis Group
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