From: artg@minnow.watson.ibm.com (Art Goldberg)
Newsgroups: comp.os.research
Subject: Re: A challenge
Date: 15 Apr 92 20:04:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: darkstar.33002
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Originator: osr@ftp

In article <32876@darkstar.ucsc.edu>, eepjm@wombat.newcastle.edu.au
(Peter Moylan) writes:
|> In article <32798@darkstar.ucsc.edu>, axb@cse.nd.edu (Arindam Banerji) writes:
|>
|> >    Most system and application software is written in high-level languages
|> >    these days (except in DOS ofcourse). Applications are built around the
|>
|> I'd dispute this.  An awful lot of software - and I use the word
|> "awful" advisedly - is still written in C.
|>
|> In response to the original challenge, here is what I personally
|> have learnt in the last 15 years:
|>
|> 1. If it's not written in C, nobody wants to hear about it.
|> 2. If it's not Unix or similar to Unix, nobody wants to hear about it.
|>

Get real guys.  Just because the only computers you've used run
Unix doesn't mean that that's what the world uses.  There are
84 MILLION personal computers in the world.  Here is the breakdown
of the operating systems they run in 1991 (Source: InfoCorp via NY Times)

71% DOS alone
9% DOS with Windows
7% Macintosh
9% Proprietary
2% Unix
1% OS/2
1% Other

% It would be more interesting to know the rate of change for these OSes.  --DL

OS/2 2.0 is written in assembler, as is (i think) DOS.   The Mac OS
is written in assembler and pascal.  The proprietary systems are written
in everything from assembler, to C, to who knows what.

Looking at these numbers, and considering the dramatic increase in
price/performance of 80x86 PCs in the last few years you can bet that
the large scale distributed systems of the future will have to interact
with 80x86 PCs running DOS and Macs.  Consider these examples:

o  Lotus Notes was originally written with OS/2 servers and OS/2 and
DOS clients and has only recently ported to Unix servers.  It is a
customizable readnews for corporate networks that has structures forms
as articles.  I think they sold licenses for 200K machines last year.
Lotus is betting its future on it.

o  A new airline reservation system being built in Europe uses 10,000 PCs.

o  There is a new oil-trading system being setup in north america that I
believe is based on PCs.

o  Novell's netware is, commercially, the most successful `distributed'
LAN operating system, and its primary targets are DOS machines and Macs.


One of the problems with OS research is that we're not compatible with
many of the machines and much of the software being used out there.
Many big and important distributed systems, like the ones Ken mentioned
earlier, are being designed and built TODAY.  There are systems built
for NASA for managing data for the mission to planet earth, by the SEC
for controlling trading resolution on the NYSE, by DOD for
communications, by the social security administration for record
keeping, by the FAA for flight control, etc.  And you can be sure that
many corporations are building similar communications and coordination
systems today, although we don't hear as much about them because the
companies keep them confidential.  If we do not have experience on the
hardware and software platforms these guys use then when they call us
in for technical guidance and leadership we can't do our jobs.  And
once all these systems are designed and built it will be alot harder to
get them right!


Arthur P. Goldberg
H1-A11, Box 218, IBM Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598
voice: 914 784-7608 FAX: 914 784-6307
email: artg@watson.ibm.com