Ôçí/On 19 Jul 2003 20:28:29 GMT,ï(ç) Matthew Westcott
Ýãñáøå/wrote:

> Tarquin Mills wrote in :
>
>> The speccy's OS is open source unlike DOS
>
>
> Uhm? No, Sinclair never released the original source (as far as I know).
> Sure, it's been extensively reverse-engineered, more completely and
> accurately than we could ever hope for with DOS (obviously aided by the
> fact that it's 16K long and written directly in Z80 assembler) but that
> doesn't make it open source.
>
>

Exactly right. The only "REAL" [1] Sinclair OS that's open source is QDOS'
latest reincarnation SMSQ/E. And that didn't come easy or fast :-)


[1] By real of course I mean that it was written by it's original author
Tony Tebby. It is NOT however a copy of QDOS in any way. And that's easily
proven by looking at the QDOS disassembly and the SMSQ/E sources. (Both of
which are handwritten heavily-optimised 68K assembly

P.S. There are two other open souce OSes for the QL namely Minerva (started
out as an improvement over QDOS) and QDOS Classic (which started life as QL
Amiga Emulator). And although QDOS Classic is very similar to QDOS, because
it's derived from the QDOS' disassembly it doesn't count ;-)


--
One Motorola per day, makes the doctor go away :-)
For mail remove the obvious crap from the email below:
mailto:ql@dokos-grCHOKEONTHIS=SPAMMER.net

Sinclair QL did eloquently scribble:
> Exactly right. The only "REAL" [1] Sinclair OS that's open source is QDOS'
> latest reincarnation SMSQ/E. And that didn't come easy or fast :-)
>
>
> [1] By real of course I mean that it was written by it's original author
> Tony Tebby. It is NOT however a copy of QDOS in any way. And that's easily
> proven by looking at the QDOS disassembly and the SMSQ/E sources. (Both of
> which are handwritten heavily-optimised 68K assembly
>
> P.S. There are two other open souce OSes for the QL namely Minerva (started
> out as an improvement over QDOS)

Errr...
They OPENED THE SOURCES TO MINERVA AND SMSQ/E????/

When??? First I've heard of it.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| spike1@freenet.co.uk | Windows95 (noun): 32 bit extensions and a |
| | graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit |
|Andrew Halliwell BSc(hons)| operating system originally coded for a 4 bit |
| in |microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that|
| Computer Science | can't stand 1 bit of competition. |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ôçí/On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 19:33:39 +0100,ï(ç)
Ýãñáøå/wrote:

> Sinclair QL did eloquently scribble:



> Errr...
> They OPENED THE SOURCES TO MINERVA AND SMSQ/E????/
>
> When??? First I've heard of it.

Hehe you shouldn't have unsubscribed from ql-users (which by the way is not
on nvg.ntnu.no anymore)

See personal mail for further info :-)



--
One Motorola per day, makes the doctor go away :-)
For mail remove the obvious crap from the email below:
mailto:ql@dokos-grCHOKEONTHIS=SPAMMER.net