13 May
2013
13 May
'13
10:24 a.m.
On May 13, 2013, at 1:10 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On 05/13/2013 11:03 AM, David Riley wrote:
Perhaps I misread it and Holger just meant for OS/2? I'll agree with that.
- Dave
On May 13, 2013, at 7:45 AM, Holger Veit wrote:
I don't think that's what the OP meant. I really don't think anyone is
unaware that the PPC (and POWER) is a rather substantial commercial success. Not having seen the PPC source, but the
86/286/386 monster of OS/2-kernel source (3.x), I can only agree. I consider it almost
impossible, without a complete rewrite and then only - as in the PPC implementation - with
largely different APIs to port this thing to anything else, including PDP-11. Given the
386 ring architecture, it would be more likely to transfer a look-alike to a VAX, but not
to a PDP with MMU. But even then; the question is: what benefit would there be? DEC
systems were already a dying platform at the time of OS/2, and lack of any compatibility
to the original x86-based system would gain nothing. Even the PPC was not a success, not
only because of the obscure CHRP architecture no other vendor used, but also because of
the lack of killer application or migration path. Apple those days did it better in
providing an emulator to run older 68K apps on the PPC.
I dunno, I think the PPC was a success, just not as much on the desktop.
There are LOADS of PowerPCs running high-end embedded stuff in cars and
telecom systems, and all three of the previous generation of game
consoles used a PowerPC of some sort as the CPU.