Gil Bates wrote “SPIN is an operating system that blurs the distinction between kernels and applications. Applications traditionally live in user-level address spaces, separated from kernel resources and services by an expensive protection boundary. With SPIN, applications can specialize the kernel by dynamically linking new code into the running system. Kernel extensions can add new kernel services, replace default policies, or simply migrate application functionality into the kernel address space. Sensitive kernel interfaces are secured via a restricted linker and the type-safe properties of the Modula-3 programming language. The result is a flexible operating system that helps applications run fast but doesn’t crash.” More can be found on the SPIN homepage. More on Modula-3 can be found here.
The SPIN Operating System and Modula-3 Language
About The Author
Adam Scheinberg
Technology Executive o Web Developer o Father o Foodie o Music Snob o OS enthusiast
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Starting that in kernel space you usually dont have memory protection!
They require Redhat 4.2 to build the system.It shows how much they want people to use their product.
You can connect to a spin machine running spin….
is actually
Apache/1.3.27 (Unix) on Linux
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/
Well, the date on the page is 1997. Sounds about right for RedHat 4.2.
What’s the news on this? As far as I can tell, the spin stuff is several years old?
Yes, but sources are still available. As a page that introduces people to all sorts of OSes, maybe some of our readers would be interested in looking at Spin. Some OSes began as forks from current OSes (Syllable springs to mind), so there’s no reason, just because something is BASED on something old, to believe that there isn’t still interest.
Isn’t the original OS X based on BSD 3.x or something?
The PM3 distro of Modula-3 is no longer at polymtl.ca ( University of Montreal). It, along with the CM3 distro ( Critical Mass) can be found at http://www.elegosoft.com
If you want to be able to dynamically update code while the application is running you should take a look at erlang (www.erlang.org & http://www.erlang.se). The language has other nice properties like concurrency, being a functional language, nice (prolog-like) syntax etc…
Modula 3 is a very cool language that never caught on. It’s too bad, I really liked it.
Yes BSDLite 3.2. Now its synced with FreeBSD 4.4.
>Yes BSDLite 3.2. Now its synced with FreeBSD 4.4.
Ahem, no. FreeBSD 3.2.
SPIN was an interesting research project, and produced many good papers. The keywords here are “was” and “research”. This is not news at all, and no, the OS isn’t very useful.
It’s not supposed to be. It was supposed to be used to explore safe downloading of code into the kernel. It did that. It has served its purpose.
Sure, you could theoretically take the code and turn it into something useful, but why would you? There are many, many other projects better suited to be used as a base for that.
However, you should check out their papers (and maybe the exokernel project, which had similar goals).
well, it would be if you removed the support for ps/2 mice.
Sure you didn’t mean Bill Gates? It’s just strange how close his name is to Bill Gates.
Simple, elegant, and maintained. Now with multiprocessor support, too!
<http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/>
Yet another One Security Feature To Rule Them All design and as flawed as the rest – if you break past this *one* feature (buffer overrun, bug in the compiler, unexpected kernel-modification interaction), your system is utterly compromised, period.
Layered designs are more secure and stable in practise.
Gil Bates == Bil Gates?
When I submitted this item for news I did not realize that the SPIN project was essentially mothballed and that Modula-3 development has slowed down a lot as I had not really dug through the websites yet at that point.
It all just seemed so interesting at first glance that I rushed to submit it (sorry). Modula-3 looks very slick and I would like to try it out sometime (it is still an ongoing open source project at this time).
Is this article a joke? The author’s name is very similar to bill gates. gil bates = bil gates .Coincidence or joke?
I saw that the website was dated 1997 before I posted it. Any OS that can spark discussion, whether maintained or not, is OS News is my book. If readers or other editors disagree, please, let me know.
Otherwise, SPIN and M3 looked like cool little projects. I had never heard of either. I thought others would enjoy reading about them, regardless of the current status.
Look, Gil Bates is the nick of one of the regular posters here. Its just a freaking nick! Obviously, its intended to look like Bill Gates, and I think its rather clever myself.
Actually, only certain userland tools and some filesystem components are from FreeBSD 4.4 A lot of the kernel stuff is from NetBSD, but the overall majority of the BSD layer is 4.4BSD-lite2.
Gil Bates! OMG!, osnews is so funny now days
i dont read comments or forums normally
hehe… nice nick man…
along with the lindows sueing m$ and me seeing a funny nick, os news has made my day