Erik Naggum  <erik@naggum.no> wrote:
+---------------
|   free software _used_ to be how vendors gave their customers their
|   operating systems.
+---------------

Yup!!!  I learned a *lot* (in the early 1970's) from reading the
sources to TOPS-10, the operating system for the DEC PDP-10, which
was shipped with every PDP-10.

One of the lessons that would probably surprise the current generation
of coders:  It *is* possible to write disciplined, cleanly-structured,
readable, supportable, and even *OBJECT-ORIENTED* code in assembler!

[Having an assembler with a macro system almost as good as Lisp's certainly
didn't hurt any, though the TOPS-10 kernel didn't stress the macrology all
that much. Well, except maybe in the defsystem-equivalent area...]


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock, 8L-855		rpw3@sgi.com
Applied Networking		http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/
Silicon Graphics, Inc.		Phone: 650-933-1673
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy.		FAX: 650-933-0511
Mountain View, CA  94043	PP-ASEL-IA