Re: A85: Multi Shell programming (was Sqrxz 0.7b)

[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Re: A85: Multi Shell programming (was Sqrxz 0.7b)

Perhaps you are right, but a killer app in this case reffers to a
program
that only runs on PhatOS. To do such a think would be easy, because
there
are plans for a new Insane game. (perhaps I'll even get bored enough to
write a new LodeRunner, but that's beside the point) PhatOS was created
to bring shells togather rather than play king of the hill and chase all
the other shells away. To write a program that would only work on PhatOS
would be taking a giant step back. Usgard is hopping that by writting
the
sqrxz ONLY for usgard that they can kill off all the other shells, wich
is quite sad considering the main reason for PhatOS was that Usgard was
large and imho not optimized. We thought about adding some Usgard
support
to PhatOS, but Usgard doesn't document any features, and half of them
never get used anyway. Also all the extra calls that Usgard supports are
burried within the shell and not at the the start of the shell as in
zshell and some other shells; making Usgard very hard to emulate. I
doubt
this was done on purpose but it will make it hard for new versions of
Usgard to be backwards compatible.

As i have said before I would like the sources for shells to be released
in hopes of creating a SMALL shell that could run most programs from the
other shells. If any shell does release information about features that
would be usefull they will probably be added; but it would have to be a
feature that all future shells could use.

I know Matt Butch has posted saying he was going to write a shell that
would emulate all the shells, but I feel it is unlikely to succeed
because
of all the calls of the different shells (And Cshells MPIR's) have to be
in exact spots to work. It seems nobody thought about compatibily when
they
wrote the shells. Even the methoods for relocation are different from
shell
to shell.

Maybe now that we have all written these shells we can start over with a
new shell that combines the best features of all shells. WE NEED A
STANDARD
SHELL! (usgard is far from perfect ;-)



Mike Baker
mbm00@hotmail.com


__________________________________________________________________________
Get your free, Phat based OS at http://missoula.bigsky.net/oxymoron/phat

Michael Pearce wrote:
> 
> I think that Usgard will be the "standard" shell when everything
> clears up.  Is this for the best?  maybe not.  Usgard wins because of
> (atleast partly) the popularity factor.  Everyone has played Andreas's
> games.  Everyone has heard of Mel's Expander.  And throwing in Jimmy
> Mardell as a supporter doesn't hurt.  But Usgard is a good shell.  It
> has many of the features that users (and programmers) want.  If Usgard
> was 2000 bytes, i don't think that anyone would have ever complained
> about the shell.  And there is where it's problem lies.  It would be
> nice if the source was released and anyone could try to find a way to
> optomize the shell (while still keeping it backwards compatible, of
> course).  Anyone who wanted to try to make the shell better, could
> try, and it would benefit everyone.  Unluckily, i doubt this will
> happen, but i think this is something similar to what you wanted for
> PHAT OS.  i think you (PHAT OS) needs a "killer app" to succeed.
> Maybe Usgard just got one with Sqrxz.  And for users, who make the
> ultimate decision on which shell to use, this is *the* deciding
> factor.  They just want to play the latest and greatest games.
> 
> -mike
> 
> On Sun, 10 Aug 1997 21:25:24 -0400, you wrote:
> 
> >This goes back abit but i remember when a certain program was released on
> >ticalc and the author objected saying that it could only be put on ti-files
> >and pages not affiliated with ticalc. I thought that was pretty annoying of
> >the author to force his hate of a page on all users wishing to download the
> >program. I think this whole thing about programming for only one shell (the
> >one they sponsor/ or have written) is just as bad. Ever since all the zshell
> >clones have come out, each has added their own features (most undocumented)
> >making it impossible for something from one shell to be run on another shell.
> >
> > I think that we need a standard to be set, otherwise authors will need to
> >continue to program in zshell4 format to keep compatiblity or write versions
> >of their programs for all shells out there. (i suppose you could release the
> >source code and let someone else port it for you); anyway back on track we
> >need a standard to be set. until recently zshell was our standard and every
> >program was written for it and it would run on any shell, but since zshell4.5
> >hasn't shown yet new shells are starting to come out. It's getting obvious
> >that zshell4 isn't enough anymore. We need a shell that will set the standard
> >for all shell current and new to use. PhatOS started to be that, only using
> >features well documented from other shells and documenting new features, but
> >it seems PhatOS isn't that popular. Maybe we could get a shell to release it's
> >source and then anyone could send in parts of code for the next version. (if
> >anyone thought that was a good idea mail me, i'll make sure it doesn't happen
> >again) Perhaps we will release the PhatOS code; because nobody else seems to
> >be talking about how the internals of their shell work.
> >
> >
> >
> >Mike Baker
> >mbm00@hotmail.com
> >
> >
> >__________________________________________________________________________
> >Get your free, Phat based OS at http://missoula.bigsky.net/oxymoron/phat
References: