discussion:Taos

[Mike Prince]

On Wed, 30 Nov 1994, Johan Van Schalkwyk wrote:

> 2. Has anyone seen TAOS at work?

Not me.

> 3. How long has it been around?

It's been worked on for several years now, and is just gearing up for 
commercial applications.

> 4. Does anyone know of independent comments / criticisms (favourable & 
> not so). Especially, any major weaknesses.

Byte did a writeup that was favorable.

> 5. What is the minimum system on which it runs? And how fast?

You can work with it on a PC with 1 Meg.  A truly minimal system could be 
100K (kernel approx. 10K + tools).  It's based on a virtual risc 
processor distribution code, which compiles to native before execution.  
The closer the CPU is to RISC, the faster it goes.  BTW (RISC=32 bit + 
10ish registers).  Supposedly it's pretty fast.

> 6. All the hype at the end makes me decidedly nervous.

My gut feeling is it's pretty good, although marketing people still must 
make us ill with hype even for a good product.

> 7. Is kernel coding available. (You can be damn sure, not)
> 8. How much does it cost?

Everything is available for $150.  The kernel, sample software, 
programming environment.

> 9. Is a list or description of "nodes" etc available?

You mean systems it will run on? yes.

> 10. Are program examples available?

yes.

Mike