[TUHS] Unix stories

[Steve Nickolas]

On Mon, 2 Jan 2017, Nick Downing wrote:

> Yes, I agree, I want to do exactly that. And, I know my ideas are
> probably also perceived as daft. But it's OK :)
>
> Unfortunately a C interpreter does not really work in principle,
> because of the fact you can jump into loops and other kinds of abuse.
> So the correct execution model is a bytecode.

I was mainly looking at UCSD Pascal as a model, which iirc uses a bytecode 
optimized for Pascal.  C isn't too different so the major difference is 
probably its implementation of pseudothreads/multitasking, which I don't 
think UCSD Pascal supported (at least on the Apple ][ where it was 
actually somewhat common).

Well, there's also the issue of UCSD Pascal having a really braindead 
filesystem (even MS-DOS 1.25 was more advanced).

I guess the question would be, what precisely would be needed for a 
reasonably simple Unix-alike (I suppose V7 would be a good initial 
target?) to be run on such, and then I'd have to figure out how to come up 
with the system from that.  Not exactly my strong point =P

That said, it would perhaps result in being able to run a (slow) 
Unix-alike on smaller systems which might not otherwise be able to run 
such an OS because of CPU limitations - like the Apple //e I have 
collecting dust off in the back room. ;)

-uso.