Some funny MS Propaganda

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Oct 02, 2003 at 12:41:28AM -0400, Michael wrote:
> Okay, first of all "running The Internet" is a vague term, generally
> my own experience suggests that the servers not the routers run the
> Internet - I know it sounds odd but that seems to be the convention.
> (I may be wrong on that point.)
> 
> Now as for IOS... okay yes Cisco boxes run IOS, which is a big bad
> ugly name (bad and ugly because it does not really describe what IOS
> is) for what is nothing more than a shell that runs on top of QNX.
> Basically IOS is what the router administrator uses to modify the
> router configuration, for example set up VLANs (it runs on Cisco
> switches too) set up routes, change Routing Protocols (not to be
> confused with routed protocols), and so on.
> 
> The point is IOS is a lot of I (as in Interface) and not really an
> OS. So what runs a Cisco router? QNX. QNX is designed to feel like
> Unix, but it is NOT Unix. Not by a million miles is QNX even close to
> Unix.

I can't find ANYTHING that indicates IOS runs on QNX, and I actually
find it hard to believe, since I don't think QNX generally runs on non
x86 hardware, and I don't think Cisco uses x86 hardware.  I have only so
far found a reference mentioning Cisco was considering putting a real
time OS into IOS, but that they hadn't done so yet (as of 2002 it would
appear).  I suppose QNX would have added more types of hardware by now
though.

> You can read tons on QNX at a number of places:
> 
> http://www.qnx.com
> http://student.math.uwaterloo.ca/~cs452
> http://mjc88.0catch.com
> 
> Now a little history lesson. In the late 1970s two U of Waterloo
> computer science students (a grad student who had a B Sc in Physics -
> from UW) and a 4'th year undergrad took a course, CS 452 (Real Time
> Programming) anyone here, who took CS at U(W) can tell you about the
> infamous "trains course". - You need to build a real time OS that
> runs on bare hardware (currently on an i486, back in the 70's it was
> something else obviously) then you need to build an application that
> talks to a toy train set and makes the trains to amazing things. You
> have three months and you can work in teams of one or two, good luck!
> - Anyway back in the 70s our heroes took the above course and were so
> inspired, delighted, shocked into total insanity, that they decided
> to open up a little company in their home town (Ottawa) to sell there
> little project which they called QNX.
> 
> (I also took CS 452 and that's why a. I know all about this and b.
> why I still cower at the sight of toy train sets.)
> 
> Now the reason you read my little tale, QNX is based on a CS 452 OS
> project, CS 452 was the brain child of a PhD student who had this
> nifty idea: "why not strip everything you don't totally need out of
> the OS kernel and use IPC to do everything the kernel traditionally
> does." In other-words, why not make a Micro kernel, and use special
> mechanism for IPC, the special mechanisms are called kernel
> primitives, and there are three:
> 
> int send(void * pid, void * msg, int length);
> int receive(void * msg, void * senderPID);
> reply(void * msg, int length);
> 
> (Its been a while, I may have the syntax wrong, sorry.)

It isn't nice to remind people of these things... :)

> Now you build these synchronous kernel primitives and then you build
> yourself serial servers, keyboard servers, video servers and you have
> yourself an OS which you can sell to Cisco systems and make your
> millions.
> 
> Now why would Cisco want a micro kernel instead of a monolithic? Well
> for one thing Micro Kernels service interrupts really really fast,
> for another thing, it is much easier to assert that QNX will really
> be hard real time than say RT Linux.

Which may be why what I found indicates that Cisco is considering doing
it, but it sure looked like they hadn't done so yet.  There does seem to
be some talk of a QNX based IOS sometime this year, but it would be a
new things then.

> Where can I take a course as interesting and exciting as CS 452? (If
> you really want to know the answer to that question you probably
> ought to turn yourself in to the Queen Street mental health unit,
> otherwise if you really want to know the answer go take CS 452 at
> U(W).)

Well at least it was still there last time I stopped by.

Lennart Sorensen
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