[Coco] Microsoft files for patent on "modular operating system"

[John R.]

On 1/30/07, Phill Harvey-Smith <afra at aurigae.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Mike Huskey wrote:

> > http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070129-8728.html

> >

> > How many years has os-9 been around? It seems to be completely designed

> > around a modular concept.

>

> And of course Unix has been around at least since the late 60s, early

> 70s, from which OS-9 (and a host of other OSes such as MS/PC-DOS),

> borrowed concepts.

>


Well, unlike OS-9, Unix kernels are not usually modular, at least in
the sense of linked collections of "binary modules." Linux is a
monolithic kernel, for example. There's a concept of loadable kernel
modules, but they are relatively new (relative to Unix) and need to be
compiled against the same kernel headers.

Mach and Hurd are based on a modular, microkernel approach...

-- John.