Well, that's just what I was asking about. What do you mean by
'user friendliness'? A built-in debugger is not high on my list of
user-friendly features. Also, how is the TOPS base 'stronger' than
UNIX? Does it have more calls, or what?
>> [Why is TOPS-20 so much better than Unix?]
>>
>> Umm... It runs on a PDP-10?
>>
>> Seriously, now, I like the idea of being able to DETACH CONTINUE
something,
>> log in from elsewhere, re-attach my job, and continue without
stopping the
>> job (Unless is tries to do TTY I/O, then it has to wait).
>
> Well, to be technical, there is a program for Unix to do this called
>`screen'. It's actually pretty nice in that it gives you 10 virtual
>terminals, allowing you to switch between them (Ctrl-A <number>) and
>cut-n-paste as well (defaults to using vi keybindings---use Unix enough
and
>you'll get used to it). You can also detach the session and reconnect
to it
>later (and the program will continue to run even if it does TTY I/O).
>
>> And, Unix doesn't
>> have ^T. This gets Status. If you think your program has hung or
something,
>> pressing ^T does a line like this:
>> 07:49:28 MM IO wait at .TEXT1+17 Used 0:00:21.8 in 2:34:21, Load
0.80
>> (I just pressed ^T into MM and retyped what it printed)
>> This means that MM is waiting on I/O at .TEXT1+17 (which is a label
defined
>> in the program. If you wrote the program, this is significant.)
>> You also get the used CPU and connect times, and the system load.
>> Unix doesn't do this, and I wish it did...
>
> That's more a function of the shell than anything else. I think
there is
>a Unix shell that will do that (or could be told to do that). Granted,
if
>you're in some other program it won't work.
>
>> Also, if you suddenly decide you want to go poke at your program's
interior,
>> you and ^C^C it and say DDT, and (provided you know how to operate
DDT) it
>> will snag the program you just stopped and let you play with it. Or,
if you
>> do this accidentally, you can say CONTINUE and it will go along like
>> nothing happened.
>
> Now that is a nice feature, and it might be possible to munge that
into
>Unix as well. But that's the main problem with Unix---all these
features
>are munged onto a pretty weak base and people have gone so long without
>these features that Unix weenies tend to dismiss them as breaking the
>`simplicity' of Unix (brain death is more like it 8-)
>
> I think what most people lament is that 20 years later, Unix still
doesn't
>have the user friendliness of TOPS-20 nor are we likely to see anything
like
>it any time soon.
>
> -spc (Yea yea yea it could be done, but doing it right (or even
reliably)
> under Unix is a real pain ... )
>
>
>
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Received on Mon Oct 19 1998 - 13:38:49 BST