4 ms·

Pilot is cool because it's basically bare metal Mesa. Written in Mesa, runs only Mesa programs, and leverages features of the Mesa language for OS security (e.g

Pilot is cool because it's basically bare metal Mesa. Written in Mesa, runs only Mesa programs, and leverages features of the Mesa language for OS security (e.g. Mesa's capability system). Other cool projects like this: - Cedar was both a PL and an OS: https://www.ics.uci.edu/~andre/ics228s2006/swinehartzellwegerbeachhagmann.pdf https://www.ics.uci.edu/~andre/ics228s2006/swinehartzellwege... - The Oberon OS and Oberon PL https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/ProjectOberon1992.pdf https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/ProjectOberon1992.pdf - A Scheme OS called MrEd: https://www2.ccs.neu.edu/racket/pubs/icfp99-ffkf.pdf https://www2.ccs.neu.edu/racket/pubs/icfp99-ffkf.pdf You might even throw the JVM and Smalltalk into this category.

nanomonkey 5y ago
I'm having a hard time finding documents describing Mesa's capability system, although the term capability system has come up repeatedly in conversation, so I'm intrigued as to what this refers to exactly. Any documents that you can point us to? Thanks.
- wmf 5y ago
  http://www.cap-lore.com/CapTheory/ http://www.cap-lore.com/CapTheory/
  - nanomonkey 5y ago
    Thanks!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- pmcjones 5y ago
  I'm an author of the Pilot paper (and also a participant in the much earlier capability-oriented CAL TSS for the Control Data 6400: https://www.mcjones.org/CalTSS/ https://www.mcjones.org/CalTSS/). Pilot was a long time ago, but as I recall its capabilities were just Mesa records with some "option" bits plus a unique identifier for the file. So a malicious program could easily fabricate one.
rbanffy 5y ago
IIRC, Oberon used to be available from the Mac App Store.
pjmlp 5y ago
Cedar's link is broken. This is a good one, https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xeroxparcteCedarProgrammingEnvironmentAMidtermRepo_13518000 https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xeroxparcteCedarProgra...
- ModernMech 5y ago
  Thanks!
mhd 5y ago
There's a quite nifty and recent demonstration of Cedar on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_dt7NG38V4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_dt7NG38V4

nanomonkey 5y ago

I'm having a hard time finding documents describing Mesa's capability system, although the term capability system has come up repeatedly in conversation, so I'm intrigued as to what this refers to exactly. Any documents that you can point us to? Thanks.

wmf 5y ago
http://www.cap-lore.com/CapTheory/ http://www.cap-lore.com/CapTheory/
- nanomonkey 5y ago
  Thanks!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pmcjones 5y ago
I'm an author of the Pilot paper (and also a participant in the much earlier capability-oriented CAL TSS for the Control Data 6400: https://www.mcjones.org/CalTSS/ https://www.mcjones.org/CalTSS/). Pilot was a long time ago, but as I recall its capabilities were just Mesa records with some "option" bits plus a unique identifier for the file. So a malicious program could easily fabricate one.

rbanffy 5y ago

IIRC, Oberon used to be available from the Mac App Store.

pjmlp 5y ago

Cedar's link is broken. This is a good one, https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xeroxparcteCedarProgrammingEnvironmentAMidtermRepo_13518000 https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xeroxparcteCedarProgra...

ModernMech 5y ago
Thanks!

mhd 5y ago

There's a quite nifty and recent demonstration of Cedar on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_dt7NG38V4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_dt7NG38V4