May 1994 - MICROKERNELS AND OPERATING SYSTEMS


FEATURES

TRENDS IN OPERATING SYSTEM DESIGN

by Peter D. Varhol

Although there's really nothing new about them, microkernels are suddenly all the rage in operating system design. Peter examines modular OS architectures such as QNX, OS/2, and Windows NT; and Sing Li shares a recent conversation with Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux.

A C++ MULTITASKING CLASS LIBRARY

by Ken Gibson

Multithreaded applications that concurrently execute more than one section of code aren't directly supported by languages such as C++. Ken presents a C++ multitasking class library for MS-DOS that lets you implement a program as a set of

concurrent threads.

MMURTL: YOUR OWN 32-BIT OPERATING SYSTEM

by Richard Burgess

MMURTL is a message-based, multitasking, real-time kernel with a DOS-compatible FAT-like file system. In presenting this kernel, Richard focuses on MMURTL's messaging scheme and paged-memory management.

INSIDE WINDOWS NT SERVICES

by Marshall Brain

Windows NT services are implemented as otherwise-normal executables that follow a specific protocol to allow proper interaction with the service control manager (SCM). Marshall discusses how you can build, create, and install Win32 services in Windows NT.

OPTIMIZING MATRIX MATH ON THE PENTIUM

by Harlan W. Stockman

The Pentium processor is more than just a fast 486. Its pipeline and floating-point and integer operations require that you pay more attention to the flow of data on and off the FPU. Harlan presents and measures methods for speeding up Pentium matrix-math operations.

EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

RTMK: A REAL-TIME MICROKERNEL

by J.F. Bortolotti, P. Bernard, E. Bouchet

Our authors present RTMK, a real-time microkernel that's portable across platforms ranging from PCs to DSPs. RTMK delivers total control over the interrupt state of processors such as the TMS320C30.

NETWORKED SYSTEMS

OS/2 AND UNIXWARE INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION

by John Rodley

Interprocess communication isn't portable between IBM's OS/2 2.1 and Novell's UnixWare 1.1. But even though the implementation details differ greatly, the two systems do share ways of thinking about IPC. John looks at IPC under OS/2 and UnixWare to see what common ground exists.

EXAMINING ROOM

PORTING D-FLAT++ TO OS/2

by Jon Wright

Jon examines Borland C++ for OS/2 by porting Al Stevens's D-Flat++ class library to OS/2. In its original form, D-Flat++ allows you to build CUA '89-compliant user interfaces for DOS.

PROGRAMMER'S WORKBENCH

A MULTICOLUMN LIST-BOX CONTAINER FOR OS/2

by Brian Proffit

Brian uses GpfRexx's visual-programming environment to develop a multicolumn

list-box control in a Workplace Shell container. He then turns to Gpf to generate a C implementation of the control that you can optimize.

COLUMNS

PROGRAMMING PARADIGMS

by Michael Swaine

Michael wonders what in the world is going on with operating systems, particularly when it comes to the PowerPC processor.

C PROGRAMMING

by Al Stevens

This month, Al launches "Quincy," a C-language interpreter with a D-Flat-based integrated development environment.

ALGORITHM ALLEY

by Tom Swan

Tom examines the problem of exceptions, then presents an algorithm (in pseudo-Pascal and C++) which uses exceptions to report illegal input values.

UNDOCUMENTED CORNER

by Andrew Schulman

Andrew had a front-row seat at the recent Stac Electronics vs. Microsoft court proceedings. Here is his report.

PROGRAMMER'S BOOKSHELF

by Al Stevens

Bruce Schneier's recently published Applied Cryptography is a one-of-a-kind book that no programmer should be without.

FORUM

EDITORIAL

by Jonathan Erickson

LETTERS

by you

SWAINE'S FLAMES

by Michael Swaine

PROGRAMMER'S SERVICES

OF INTEREST

by Monica E. Berg


Copyright © 1994, Dr. Dobb's Journal