- entry 2015/04/17

Replies to a troll...

It is at this point that I would normally provide links to various pertinent topics or articles, but the person in question (known originally as "h0bby1" and later as "g0st") deleted the majority of the messages that he had posted - which is a shame as his h0bby1 persona had posted some interesting resource material that would have been worth retaining. Nothing of interest was posted under the guise of g0st.

Some of the content, along with the gleeful backstabbing and insults, have turned up on a nowhere nothing website. So in the interests of balancing things, I will respond to the points raised in the most recent posting on my own nowhere nothing website... ☺

The original is here, and if you back out to the system development stuff, there is more of the same.

So, without further ado, let's get to it:

Originally it's a very good operating system, technically, well very good, with a cooperative multi tasking system well in itself it's not bad, but the whole api is still in low level language like mix of assembler and C that is not very well documented, so it make a few things a bit dicey to program, but the core system is still rather well designed.

[Impression Style screenshot from Computer Concepts, WordPerfect 5.1 screenshot from WinWorldPC]

It was great in the late '80s. But what was good then is entirely different to what is good today. RISC OS is a fundamentally insecure single user single process operating system with inter-application memory protection ranging from minimal to non-existant. This, as you can understand, precludes its use as a serious server or for operatings that are supposed to be crypto-secure. That said, there is still a place for a simple lightweight operating system without the bells and whistles. After all, you would not write your memoirs on RaspBMC would you? It is not intended for that. RISC OS doesn't have much in the way of media support, so I wouldn't use it to watch movies... I, personally, believe it could have some mileage in embedded devices where your application is what is important and RISC OS will act as a framework to prevent you needing to roll your own OS. Times when Linux is total overkill but you still want a fairly competent system capable of talking to FAT media, TCP/IP, pretty text rendering, etc.

Perhaps the simplest way to describe the actual differences is to say that RISC OS is a reactive operating system; that means that the operating system responds to requests from the program and the user. The program that is running controls the operating system.
This contrasts with modern operating systems where the operating system controls the program, and both try to competently respond to the user; however the operating system is (usually) the one in overall control.

It's written large part in assembler, it uses a mechanism of software interrupts and relocatable modules , the system itself is rather smart, in fact close to the system i'm developping myself, minus the software interupts, the module stay resident in a static memory zone, and programs are loaded in there declaring entry point of swi in a module header.

The system in itself is fine, but what took me long time to realize is that nobody at castle know how it works.

They bought the sources 15 years ago from a convoluted path from acorn, no original developper of the operating are active today, well there are still people active on it, but they mostly playing out with interupts and fixing quick stuff, on hardware and all.

Actually, as I write this, I noticed something in the CVS changes that says, and I quote:

   Fix aborts on Cortex-A15 when using lazy task swapping
   Detail:
   s/VMSAv6 - After AMB_LazyFixUp has modified the page tables, perform a DSB + ISB to ensure
   the page table write has completed before we return from the abort handler.

i wanted something that leave all cpu power and memory for applications , with better support for certain things for multi media,

Now problem, everything is made in assembler, with a list of swi with the assembler API using register used/left and all, so it's pretty old.

        STARTCODE File_Seek
;
; extern os_error *File_Seek(file_handle a1, file_position position);
;
        STMFD   sp!, {lr}
        MOV     a3, a2
        MOV     a2, a1
        MOV     a1, #1
        
        SWI     SWI_OS_Args + XOS_Bit
        
        MOVVC   a1, #0
        STR     a1, file_lasterror
        
        LDMFD   sp!, {pc}

With my objective to have a system organized around a DOM-tree, well it clearly missed something.

I started to ask question, about how to make certain of the things i'm into, and they were like you can do this with a filer it's easy to do this on riscos, well then i realized nobody pulled out this thing together in the past 15 years,

and the guy who was saying this to me well he never been programming anything that works more than copy pasting a tutorial, and he is there giving advice to people on technical thing, pretending it's a riscos things.

At first i was bit surprised, when i said it would need something like 'OLELoadimage' and been told on rude impolite tone that it's esoteric windows things that nobody care about, i was like ok, well let see how it works on this system.

Then i tried to investigate to get threads or something preemptive like to run webservers, it was like opening a whole can of worms, i just saw there was a thread on it that lasted for like years, as i already have some code and lightweight infrastructure to handle threading based on interupt in my own system, that can already solve lot of this issue, i tried to pull it there, but only got trolling answers, and all kind of things about cmt/pmt/amp theory, i'm sure none of this people ever programmed anything multi thread in c or c++ or assembler.

I note that he mentions a threading infrastructure on his own system, I should point out that no code was ever posted. As far as I'm concerned, no code exists.

To my knowledge, there are three pre-emption systems "available" for RISC OS:

• From 1992 comes a pre-emptive multitasking timeslicer. This appears to set a CallAfter with a 20cs timer, which will then do a callback. Sort of what I suggested before and it was called a "dirty fix". Riiight. I'm not sure if this has ever been used, or if it was more a proof of concept.
• From 1999 comes the one that actually got used and pre-empted regular Wimp programs spectacularly well - Wimp2 (formerly known as Tornado?). This doesn't use CallAfter, it uses the hardware high resolution "Timer1" built into the IOC chip.
• And, of course, the venerable TaskWindow, a stand-alone program preemption system that we use all the time. It is pretty solid (it is used extensively while building RISC OS itself) but it has quirks (understatement of the year!), just take a look at what Justin Fletcher thinks of TaskWindow...

Then all kind of crazy solutions, and when you critics anything, you get insulted called no brainer,

What was said is:
Him: Microsoft did steal the whole C/Shared library principle from unix
Me: What? You mean like we did? Dude – it’s an obvious no-brainer. You simply do not need to have the entire runtime kicking around within every single program you have. That might fly in a single-tasking world, but in a multitasking (GUI or console) world, having a shared library makes a LOT of sense.

When something is a "no-brainer", it means that it is something that is so obvious that it doesn't require any effort to understand. For instance, taking an umbrella with you when the sky is black as night at noon is a no-brainer. That means a really black sky is usually a sign of heavy rain, so it doesn't require much mental effort to consider that equipping yourself is a wise move. It's.... a no-brainer.

people just act like if they were technical directory of some big company whereas they are just there sitting on their 15 year old OS who can't do anything else than blitting sprite and printing text, well it's a bit abusive,

For what it is worth, RISC OS is not 15 years old. Take that figure and shift it one place to the left. That'll be closer to the truth.

it has still good windowing system and the people who programmed this are smart, but none of the people on castle and this forum understand anything of this. They just stick on old manuals and copy back interupt in programs mostly in BASIC with tweaks and stuff.

Well not that it's wrong in itself, but clearly that's not going to work out to compete with modern system.

Then i started to ask if things could be modified, i got thrown the whole issue of porting applications, then i said them clearly i won't port 20 applications to new things, then tried to investigate a little bit more about the whole thing, well basically nothing like function import, no hierarchy, no dependency, just series of module in machine code loaded in a fixed location in memory that application reference through swi number match with a name.

And they're all there waiting the messiah who will port a dom like browser and make the system preemptive,

while not giving any clue, making all the way more complicated to anyone who ask question, giving them irrelevant links or wrong information to look like they are competent, but basically none of the people there seem to worth rat shit in system or modern application programming, maybe i'm wrong though.

Some of the guy looked ok, but not the guyz from castle of from the board.

Then i asked them if then things can be modified, or if it just cannot be changed at all, and just need to stay exactly how it is, with the current api, and i've been told ok you can modify it, so then i started to investigate a little bit more, well it's not even that there is that much work to do on it for the most part to have equivalent to threads and dom plugin, but then figuring out 120MO of source, the whole application dependency, while people are just there throwing insult and calling you insane, with no other resources , well seem difficult.

And when you consider that he is asking about some fairly fundamental upheavals to the OS, it is clear that things are going to be.... difficult. Not much work for threads and DOM? Is he for real? Perhaps if he attempted to figure out the dependencies, it might have been clear that you just cannot bolt on... oh bugger it, I'm getting sick of repeating that over and over.

120MiB of source? Most of that is probably irrelevant in the short term. I mean, one would probably concentrate first on getting the kernel to be aware of pre-emption (three and a quarter megabytes), then one would probably want to see what can be done with FileCore for possibly re-entrant behaviour (one and a quarter megabytes). DeviceFS, Buffers, and various system devices (keyboard, mouse, etc) may need to be checked (another megabyte, give or take). Then comes the fun - Switcher and the Desktop (two megabytes). Add another two megabytes for the SCSI-USB and USB drivers. And finally 170 kilobytes for the entire HAL.
Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Because I'm seeing that one would want to concentrate on about nine and a half megabytes of source. Which is a far cry from 120MiB. And, wait, there's no such thing as application dependency, didn't he say that just a few paragraphs ago?
But, yeah. I'm not aware of anybody outright calling him insane, but I do think that if it was easy then it would have been done by now. After all, he has already written an operating system, allegedly, so this should be fairly simple for him, right?

so for the moment i'll just publish some of things i made, and document few things i figured out,

and will more focus on my own system which seem more productive than dealing with a bunch of old fart with their basic not wanting anything to move to be able to brag about how great they are to know how the old stuff work, and not even knowing one tenth of anything but still act as technical director for the whole system while they don't know anything about it.

The most disturbing has been to find out that the most active developper of riscos this past 15 year has been struggling for years on the exact same issues, and he had all the good idea, with ole like components, with js scripting, OO orientation, fixing dependency issues on module for the toolbox, and he complains himself to have been faced with only people who wanted their BASIC and non OO things to keep the few base of users they had in 1998 that were mostly education and some home user, but those needs moved quite a lot past years, and they are still like robots on these old issues.

Well i been there it just seem people are only interesting into bragging at how great their is, and how great they are for knowing such a great piece of technology,

trying to pretend they have the level of system developpers whereas any attempt by any team to do anyting of this the past 15 year to bring to preemptiveness and all things it needs like a web browser failed,

and are still there it's better that windows,

and who needs objects, dependency, threading, only giving cheap solution that are just nothing more than dirty fix presented as if they were the holy grail of programming, and the whole thing is made like this out of cheap fix after cheap fix with horrible synthax, the whole thing hold with glue and rope and nobody know even how it works there.

Is it a dirty fix to suggest that one fakes threading and thread switching by hanging off of the system ticker or a callback? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I should point out that the UnixLib pthreads library suggests using __pthread_stop_ticker() and __pthread_start_ticker() around calls to Wimp_Poll. To me, this suggests a similar sort of idea. But, hey, what else can you expect to do on a system that doesn't natively understand multiple threads? It isn't the holy grail of anything, it is trying to get a concept not understood by RISC OS...working on RISC OS. If anybody has any better ideas, feel free to write some code and release it. Maybe porting all these wonderful Linux programs (that rely heavily on various attributes of POSIX) would become a little bit easier?

The rest... I think we've already completely demonstrated that there are people that understand RISC OS so the rest can be disregarded.

Plus all the people who try interpret words, or to push people out of their limit, like a guy who is working h24 with not so good health, and they don't even say him to make a break,

and always confronting people on their ego and stuff, and making them say thing they didn't say, really immature manipulative behavior, it really reminded me cult tactics almost, about great promise of future things to come that never come, and how everything is best with tons of bias and dishonnest speech, never spoken to people with so little honnesty in their speech for a while lol

Those guy are so biased, you'd think it's a religion, you critics anything, you get insulted, called insane, it's really like a cult in fact,

as long as you in hearth at the greatness of riscos, everything is fine, even if you say 10 bad advise per word to other people who might be interested, as long as it's pro riscos it's fine, but once you start to ask question, and to face them with problems, then suddently you become odd, insane, and all.

How, though, does one respond to requests for a DOM model (does he even know what this means?), a .Net specific language, and pre-emption? The latter is one that we have actually discussed but without knowing the best way forward for all of the reasons already given, maybe multicore work will provide a test bed for different ideas? I don't know. It is a valid problem, but a very difficult problem. The other requests? Incomprehensible, only we were more polite.

Well i removed all my posts from there, and one guy started to take picture of them thinking that looked smart with his phone haha saying he would use it for its own site,

at least there would be something more interesting than useless arm tutorial with 3 lines of code and 3 pages of explanation to explain some basic concept.

He even more or less stollen a sentence i told in a thread to make his own little tutorial on C trying to look smart or helpful or something lol

Well it's a little bit pathetic, it's sad a system like this had fallen into such kind of place haha, i can understand why justin has given up and why he kept on it for long,

but really the organisation, the mentality, it make it impossible to turn it into something more modern, despite all being in lack of good browser and threading, the mentality there make it impossible to do anything.

No wonder why nobody is more involved developping this system, it has potential, but people prefer to be in their cultish os war of it's better than windows, always trying to compare it saying it's better,

with all bias and dishonnesty possible to have,

and to me it give a very bad impression of cheap marketting and amateurism,

the number of inacurate things or plain wrong i've been told there, really i would advise anyone going on that forum to check twice any said, even if checking twice 1000 things to get anything done is long well, i didn't really see much people there competent at answering anything.

They pretend to be competent at answering, and will act if they know what they are talking about, and how to do things, what is risc like, what is riscosish but it's just mostly myth and dragon about stuff that just has been put up to date, cleanup and made safer, and i guess it's kind of scene marketting to keep things in certain myth to keep the user base they have currently, but well that's not very attractive to new users, that's for sure.

In closing, I would like to point you to a post by Steffen Huber that sums things up nicely. You don't need to take my word for anything here. I encourage you, in the interests of fairness, to go read the forum posts and try to glean what was said in the now mostly deleted messages and you might derive some context as to the extremely skewed mostly erroneous delusions that are provided on the Psychic Vibe website. If you wish to believe it, fine. That's your choice. But I will keep referring you to the actual forum so you can see what sort of evilly nefarious things really happened there (hmmm, the first rule of troll is you don't talk about troll...?) and maybe realise what the truth is. Because the content quoted (and replied to) here? That isn't the truth. Not by a long long long long way. Let's just say it's a good thing us Brits don't have a litigious mindset!
However, I do expect you to work this out for yourself, not just believe some random rubbish on some random website.

Okay, that's enough time I've wasted on this individual. I ought to be Frenchy-New-Wave and finish like this:

Your comments:

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GAVIN WRAITH, 18th April 2015, 15:13

It was clear to me right from the start, before the vituperation started, that we were dealing with a paranoiac. His poor English, and poor spelling, were clues to his isolation. But is it not amazing how easily he gets under people's skin? Maybe that is because we all have a paranoiac inside us somewhere?  Anyway, your long piece here, Rick, will be useful to a lot of people, and is a good read.    I have come across one or two people suffering from similar delusions, not in the world of computing but mathematics. There was this chap that kept asking inane, meaningless questions during a seminar by Sammy Eilenberg. Afterwards, over a drink, Sammy said: "This chap does not understand. He thinks that everybody else is as befuddled as himself. He thinks that we are just spouting nonsense, and is offended to find that when he spouts nonsense nobody treats him seriously". Some years later this guy was charman of the maths department of a university in East Berlin. He invited me to visit and give a seminar. Alas, when I arrived, I discovered that he had been admitted to a mental hospital that same day.

VinceH, 19th April 2015, 12:26

Gavin,  > It was clear to me right from the start, before the vituperation started, that we were dealing with a paranoiac.    Quite so. Some of the habits evident in his posts reminded me very much of posts I've seen from my brother on Facebook and the like (though with a massive difference as well.    My brother has paranoid schizophrenia, coupled with learning difficulties, and when he's exhibiting signs of his illness, you'll often see multiple replies to a single post, each becoming increasingly far removed from (and reacting negatively towards) what was originally said and based increasingly on what he himself said in previous comments.    The difference seems to be that this individual has an amount of technical knowledge (though not necessarily understanding to go with it) that my brother wouldn't have a hope of achieving.    Incidentally, re the bizarre 'DOM model' he was talking about - bizarre because he seemed to be talking about it in the context of the OS. I wonder if the answer lies in this comment of yours (somewhere in the post above):    "What is the deal with an application starting and opening a big empty window awaiting input? What is the deal with the application quitting when I close the window? I know Windows can push windows out of the way (minimise), so why can't applications just load and wait until they are wanted?"    I wonder if by DOM model, he's thinking in terms of an OS where applications work like that - so the application does indeed load and open a big empty window to start creating its document type, rather than sit quietly on the icon bar until we want to use it either by starting a new document, or opening an existing one. For someone used to the other behaviour, it might be frustrating for someone used to something else.

Rick, 12th December 2020, 16:21

https://web.archive.org/web/20151022003823/http://psychic.vibe.f ree.fr/pf/index.php/welcome/article/en/thoughts%20on%20castle%20 and%20%20riscos_1/tech/osdev

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