Skip to main content

history of minicomputers operating system

Digital Equipment Corporation created several operating systems for its 16-bitPDP-11 machines, including the simple RT-11 system, the time-sharing RSTSoperating systems, and the RSX-11 family of real-time operating systems, as well as the VMS system for the 32-bit VAX machines.
Several competitors of Digital Equipment Corporation such as Data General,Hewlett-Packard, and Computer Automation created their own operating systems. One such, "MAX III", was developed for Modular Computer SystemsModcomp II and Modcomp III computers. It was characterised by its target market being the industrial control market. The Fortran libraries included one that enabled access to measurement and control devices.
IBM's key innovation in operating systems in this class (which they call "mid-range"), was their "CPF" for the System/38. This had capability-based addressing, used a machine interface architecture to isolate the application software and most of the operating system from hardware dependencies (including even such details as address size and register size) and included an integrated RDBMS. The succeeding OS/400 for the AS/400 has no files, only objects of different types and these objects persist in very large, flat virtual memory, called a single-level store. i5/OS and later IBM i for the iSeriescontinue this line of operating system.
The Unix operating system was developed at AT&T Bell Laboratories in the late 1960s, originally for the PDP-7, and later for the PDP-11. Because it was essentially free in early editions, easily obtainable, and easily modified, it achieved wide acceptance. It also became a requirement within the Bell systems operating companies. Since it was written in the C language, when that language was ported to a new machine architecture, Unix was also able to be ported. This portability permitted it to become the choice for a second generation of minicomputers and the first generation of workstations. By widespread use it exemplified the idea of an operating system that was conceptually the same across various hardware platforms, and later became one of the roots of the free software and open source including GNU, Linux, and the Berkeley Software Distribution. Apple's OS X is also based on Unix viaNeXTSTEP[9] and FreeBSD.[10]
The Pick operating system was another operating system available on a wide variety of hardware brands. Commercially released in 1973 its core was aBASIC-like language called Data/BASIC and a SQL-style database manipulation language called ENGLISH. Licensed to a large variety of manufacturers and vendors, by the early 1980s observers saw the Pick operating system as a strong competitor to Unix.[11]

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

QBasic and its history

QBasic Not to be confused with  Quick Basic . QBasic Paradigm Procedural Developer Microsoft First appeared 1991 ; 25 years ago OS MS-DOS ,  Windows 95 ,  Windows 98 ,  Windows Me ,  PC DOS ,  OS/2 , eComStation License Part of the operating system (a variety of  closed-source  licenses) Website www .microsoft .com Influenced by QuickBASIC ,  GW-BASIC Influenced QB64 ,  Small Basic QBasic  ( Microsoft  Quick Beginners All purpose Symbolic Instruction Code ) is an  IDE  and  interpreter  for a variety of the  BASIC programming language  which is based on  QuickBASIC . Code entered into the IDE is compiled to an intermediate representation , and this  IR  is immediately interpreted on demand within the IDE. [1]  It can run under nearly all versions of  DOS  and  Windows , or through  DOSBox / DOSEMU , on  Linux  and...
Post a Comment
Read more

Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine

Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine Replica of the Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM) at the  Museum of Science and Industry  in Castlefield ,  Manchester The  Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine  ( SSEM ), nicknamed Baby , was the world's first  stored-program computer . It was built at the  Victoria University of Manchester , England, by  Frederic C. Williams ,  Tom Kilburn  and Geoff Tootill , and ran its first program on 21 June 1948. [1] The machine was not intended to be a practical computer but was instead designed as a  testbed  for the  Williams tube , an early form of computer memory. Although considered "small and primitive" by the standards of its time, it was the first working machine to contain all the elements essential to a modern electronic computer. [2]  As soon as the SSEM had demonstrated the feasibility of its design, a project was initiated at the university ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Timeline of computing hardware 2400 BC–1949

Timeline of computing hardware 2400 BC–1949 This article presents a detailed  timeline  of events in the history of  computing hardware : from prehistory until 1949 . For narratives explaining the overall developments, see  History of computing . Contents Prehistory –1640 Edit Date Event 80000 BC Two notched rib bones may have been used for counting but they could have been merely decorative. [1] 18000 BC The  Ishango bone , may indicate that – even so early – material objects were used for simple arithmetical operations, and it may provide evidence of some knowledge of  prime numbers  (although this is disputed). [2] c. 2400 BC The  abacus  – the first known calculator, was probably invented by the  Babylonians  as an aid to simple  arithmetic around this time period. This laid the foundations for  positional notation  and later  computing  developments. c.   1115 BC The...
Post a Comment
Read more