Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!mips!mash From: mash@mips.com (John Mashey) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: new word order? Message-ID: <659@spim.mips.COM> Date: 2 Mar 91 22:06:29 GMT References: <1991Mar1.095745.13399@siesoft.co.uk> <1255@TALOS.UUCP> <1991Mar02.081830.2049@kithrup.COM> Sender: news@mips.COM Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. Lines: 26 Nntp-Posting-Host: winchester.mips.com In article <1991Mar02.081830.2049@kithrup.COM> sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan) writes: >Anyway: there once was a machine, 8086 based, which ran a Burroughs >Operating System. CTOS, I think it was called. It was multitasking and CTOS was Convergent Technologies' Operating System for X86 processors. Burroughs had a version called BTOS that they used when reselling the products. This was designed right at the beginning of CT, and was/is a fairly elegant distributed operating system for the business environment, with diskless/diskful workstations and servers right from the beginning (1979/1980, before my time at CT), using cheap RS422 networks. I don't know the current numbers, but Unisys claims that CTOS is #3 on the desktop, after MS/DOS & Mac, and this wouldn't surprise me, as there are probably 1 Million of these out there (+/- 200K). In some ways it was ahead of its time, and I believe Unisys is in the process of "opening" it up. Had it been broadly licensed in 1980 (which would have taken amazing foresight), the desktop world might be rather different. In many respects, it was the business equivalent of Apollo, i.e., visionary technology early, hurt at least somewhat by less-strong, but wider-licensed later technology. -- -john mashey DISCLAIMER: UUCP: mash@mips.com OR {ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!mash DDD: 408-524-7015, 524-8253 or (main number) 408-720-1700 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems MS 1/05, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086