Does anyone have any experience with GeckOS (http://www.6502.org/users/andre/osa/index.html)?
How does it compare to SLOPe? (I mean, of course, in terms of its internals, not its GUI, since it doesn't have one.)
Compared with SLOPe, seems like it's much smaller, faster, more portable, and undoubtedly much better written. I probably should have studied it before diving headfirst into my own mess.
Architecturally, many of the same basic elements are present in both, though I'm not certain whether GeckOS allows dynamically paging pieces of code and data to and from available RAM expansion. Supporting fat programs with lots of data is basically the main reason for SLOPe, so that's what I've focused on the most. In other words, unlike GeckOS, SLOPe is completely unsuited for the architecture it's designed for. Still, I think it's very nice that a SLOPe program can request, say, a 96K block of memory, get it, and not have to do anything tricky to manage it. Any other features are secondary to that main purpose.
That's why I asked. It seemed like many of the core capabilities were similar, and I was wondering if you'd looked at it first.
I've tried to avoid looking too closely at someone else's design or code, mainly for fear that I might be influenced too much and then end up with someone feeling I ripped them off. At least this way, when people have a look at my code they'll see it's so awful I couldn't possibly have gotten it from elsewhere. :P Of course, we're all influenced by the ideas of others, so no doubt when I read Andre's article about OS/A65 in C=Hacking some years ago I'm sure it made an impression on me.
Basically, SLOPe exists because I'm not a competent enough coder to write elegant programs for the 128, so I need something that will forgive me for that. That's a terrible design philosophy, I know, but I have to say I'm pretty happy with how things are turning out. Even if it's ugly under the hood, it's the kind of OS I want for my new 128.
Your new slogan: "SLOPe - For C128 Programmers Who Suck!"
Hey, I'll be a customer! :)
Perfect! Gotta get me a t-shirt with that on it! :D
Well, maybe just a mug. :)