1. EuOS - Some thoughts
Hi Euphorians,
There has been a bit of interest in this EuOS thing so I will waffle on
some more.
Some friends and I were talking about a maths problem. One lady said
"Youv'e got a computer, why don't you just type in the question - should =
be
no problem for a machine that powerful". I told her computers didn't work=
like that and she said "Why not ??" - It was that last remark ( and far t=
oo
many episodes of Star Trek:TNG/DS9/Voyager ) that got me thinking.
1. Dispite all the advances in CPU speed (x 1000+ in the last 10 years),
computers aren't really any faster because the software is so inefficient=
and convoluted.
2. Dispite the advances in storage capacity, we seem to be only slightly
better off because software is now so bloated. =
3. Despite all the advances in software development tools, software is ju=
st
as buggy as it ever was.
4. Despite WinDoze and other GUIs, computers are still clumsy to use.
So what went wrong ? I would suggest that the "Features War" is partly to=
blame along with a lack of imagination.
We have word processors, DTP, paint packages, drawing packages, browsers,=
etc but they all achieve the same thing - they all process text / binary
image files of one kind or another. We have searchable databases,
multi-media encyclopedias and web-pages - aren't they much the same thing=
?
I am not suggesting that we write a new DOS, I am suggesting something a
bit more radical, a new form of interface where you could create a
document, check its spelling, draw diagrams on it, insert spread-sheet
cells in it, mail it to whoever and be able to search for it along with a=
ny
other kind of data - an interface where you could phrase simple questions=
or formulas and get the spelling checked at the same time. Such a highly
integrated interface would have a mix of GUI and CLI elements in it.
No doubt, some of you will tell me all this can be done now, but just loo=
k
what it takes to do all this - Hundreds of EXEs, DLLs, OCXs, drivers,
ActiveX components to name but a few. I'm sure there is a simpler way.
I have already come up with some ideas but I would be interested to see
what you guys (& girls) can come up with !
Peter Blue
2. Re: EuOS - Some thoughts
- Posted by lithex <lithex at INTERGATE.BC.CA>
Oct 18, 1998
-
Last edited Oct 19, 1998
I dunno . . .
I agree with Peter Blue about software bloat. For years I noticed
that whenever I got access to a faster computer, everything went
slower, because it had to do so much more. My old Radio Shack model 1
would be ready to go before it's screen could wake up, and for simple
text, and spreadsheets, it's still not really been beaten. No bells
or whistles (no sound) no gui (no graphics) and no real headaches.
All I ever wanted was more memory, higher resolution, and a colour
monitor.
What I noticed was that the software bloat was generated by people
not wanting to do simple things. Typing "run wp" was too much
trouble, and typing "run wp c:\myfile.txt" was way too much trouble;
they wanted to "point and click". The infrastructure that could
translate a click of a mouse when the cursor is on an icon into the
command to run a word processor is enormous - way larger than the word
processor. Hence bloat.
The thing that Peter is proposing - a system that you can basically
just ask a question of, that will respond with an useful answer,
seems to me to be not a simplification but an enormous complication.
Please indulge me as I wax a bit philosophical here - but
intelligence is very difficult to insert into computers, AI is BLOAT.
And to what purpose? People are intelligent - surely it's easier for
people to formulate intelligent questions that would fit into a dumb
computer than it is to make the computer smart enough to respond to
dumb questions.
I like Euphoria because it stands in opposition to those trends that
tend to bloat everything. It's not that Euphoria will answer your
questions, it's that Euphoria makes the search for certain kinds of
answers a pleasure. The recent trend has been to have bloated special
purpose software that tries to do everything. You can make drawings
in word processors and send mail from paint programs. Euphoria is
instead stripped down generalist software that can do anything, given
some work.
Programming in Euphoria is a joy - I really have fun at it. The joy
and fun of it means that I'm building up a skill that allows me to
implement my own software tools quickly as I need them. I think that
this is a new thing in the world - a wonder. Bloated OS's let us
pretend that we don't have to know anything to have "power". I like
Euphoria because it's a tool that it's worth learning to use, not
because it does things that I don't need.
My old Model 1 used BASIC as it's OS. All the OS calls were just
BASIC commands. I think that this is the best kind of OS, and
Euphoria does it very nicely.
Bye
Martin
3. Re: EuOS - Some thoughts
Peter:
> No doubt, some of you will tell me all this can be done now,
> but just look
> what it takes to do all this - Hundreds of EXEs, DLLs, OCXs, drivers,
> ActiveX components to name but a few. I'm sure there is a simpler way.
>
> I have already come up with some ideas but I would be
> interested to see
> what you guys (& girls) can come up with !
Have ypou heard about the Oberon Project?.
It was raised by prof. Wirth (the maker of Pascal), as an answer of many of
your issues.
Oberon is a language as well as an operating system. It was first designed
for the Ceres workstation, (a hardware design based on the NS32032
microprocessor), but now is widely spread among many brands of processors.
There are versions for the Intel processors, as a native OS or as a guest of
Windows.
The focus of Oberon is the reuse of code. It takes seconds to compile the
complete OS.
I'ts worth to take a glimpse of it.
Jesus.
4. Re: EuOS - Some thoughts
- Posted by bonn ortloff <kc7yrh at HOTMAIL.COM>
Oct 19, 1998
-
Last edited Oct 20, 1998
... my .02...
I thought about using windows, and a thought struck me: go into your
system.ini, my people with windows, and look at your shell line. That is
your GUI. The challenge: Make a new GUI. Make your favorite look, using
the windows KERNAL. Because all your progman.exe or explorer.exe is is
the thing feeding the info into the kernal. To my knowledge, and I will
try this, you can run a program from that shell= line. ANY program. for
example, windoze, by Irv, is a shell. those graphics are from things
like DLL's. SO, you can go and make your own GUI in that, LIKE you can
windows.
Now, for those who want to test this: DON'T! let me crash-proof it
first. Then, when the OK is passed, let's make a 32-bit GUI for our
windows '95/98. (I was gonna sat 16-bit, but the euphoria library hasn't
got all the things to connect to 16-bit DLL's. BUT, can I be wrong?)
the best of wishes,
-- "LEVIATHAN" with a scattered writing style.
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
5. EuOS - Some thoughts
- Posted by Johnny Kinsey <jkinsey at MEDIAONE.NET>
Oct 20, 1998
-
Last edited Oct 21, 1998
What you have said here is true I use a shell called LiteStep which is an
Xwindows look-a-like for Win95/NT it's pretty cool it uses *.bmp's like
skins similar to WinAmp. Take a look at it here
http://litestep.computerheaven.net/present.html
for LiteStep. I think that this is a dead project but maybe we can do
something similar with EU.
Thanks,
JKinsey
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Euphoria Programming for MS-DOS
> [mailto:EUPHORIA at LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU]On Behalf Of bonn ortloff
> Sent: Monday, October 19, 1998 11:23 PM
> To: EUPHORIA at LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
> Subject: Re: EuOS - Some thoughts
>
>
> ... my .02...
>
> I thought about using windows, and a thought struck me: go into your
> system.ini, my people with windows, and look at your shell
> line. That is
> your GUI. The challenge: Make a new GUI. Make your favorite
> look, using
> the windows KERNAL. Because all your progman.exe or explorer.exe is is
> the thing feeding the info into the kernal. To my knowledge,
> and I will
> try this, you can run a program from that shell= line. ANY
> program. for
> example, windoze, by Irv, is a shell. those graphics are from things
> like DLL's. SO, you can go and make your own GUI in that, LIKE you can
> windows.
>
> Now, for those who want to test this: DON'T! let me crash-proof it
> first. Then, when the OK is passed, let's make a 32-bit GUI for our
> windows '95/98. (I was gonna sat 16-bit, but the euphoria
> library hasn't
> got all the things to connect to 16-bit DLL's. BUT, can I be wrong?)
>
> the best of wishes,
>
> -- "LEVIATHAN" with a scattered writing style.
>
> ______________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>
