Research

RSTS (pronounced as "RIST-ess" or "RIST-uhs") is a multi-user time-sharing operating system, developed by Digital Equipment Corporation ("DEC"), (now part of Hewlett Packard) for the PDP-11 series of 16-bit minicomputers. The first version of RSTS (RSTS-11, Version 1) was implemented in 1970 by DEC software engineers that developed the TSS-8 time-sharing operating system for the PDP-8. The last version of RSTS (RSTS/E, Version 10.1) was released in September 1992. RSTS-11 and RSTS/E are usually referred to just as "RSTS" and this article will generally use the shorter form.

PL/I ("Programming Language One", pronounced "pee-el-one") is a procedural, imperative computer programming language designed for scientific, engineering, business and systems programming applications. It has been used by various academic, commercial and industrial users since it was introduced in the 1960s, and is actively used as of 2011[update].

MINIX is a Unix-like computer operating system based on a microkernel architecture created by Andrew S. Tanenbaum for educational purposes; MINIX also inspired the creation of the Linux kernel. MINIX (from "mini-Unix") was first released in 1987, with its complete source code made available to universities for study in courses and research. It has been free and open source software since it was re-licensed under the BSD license in April 2000.

Genera is a commercial operating system and development environment for Lisp machines developed by Symbolics. It is essentially a fork of an earlier operating system originating on the MIT AI Lab's Lisp machines which Symbolics had used in common with LMI and Texas Instruments. Genera is also sold by Symbolics as Open Genera, which runs Genera on computers based on an Alpha processor using Tru64 UNIX. This software is available as proprietary software. However, older versions are available as free software.

RISC/os was a UNIX operating system developed by MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. from 1985 to 1992 for their computer workstations and servers, such as the MIPS M/120 server or MIPS Magnum workstation. It was also known as UMIPS or MIPS OS.

Historically, computers were human clerks who calculated in accordance with effective methods. These human computers did the sorts of calculation nowadays carried out by electronic computers, and many thousands of them were employed in commerce, government, and research establishments. The term computing machine, used increasingly from the 1920s, refers to any machine that does the work of a human computer, i.e., any machine that calculates in accordance with effective methods. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, with the advent of electronic computing machines, the phrase ‘computing machine’ gradually gave way simply to ‘computer’, initially usually with the prefix ‘electronic’ or ‘digital’. This entry surveys the history of these machines.

"I don't think it's that significant." - Tandy president John Roach on IBM's entry into the microcomputer field On August 12, 1981, IBM introduced its new revolution in a box, the "Personal Computer" complete with a brand new operating system from Microsoft and a 16-bit computer operating system called MS-DOS 1.0.

You can find much informations about the history of operating systems and historical facts since the first release of this website in 2001. This project is still work in progress, the articles grows with every feedback and continuous improvement by the main author. Many screenshots and version informations complete the objective reviews.

Lisp machines were general-purpose computers designed (usually through hardware support) to efficiently run Lisp as their main software language. In a sense, they were the first commercial single-user workstations. Despite being modest in number (perhaps 7,000 units total as of 1988[1]), Lisp machines commercially pioneered many now-commonplace technologies — including effective garbage collection, laser printing, windowing systems, computer mice, high-resolution bit-mapped graphics, computer graphic rendering, and networking innovations like CHAOSNet. Several companies were building and selling Lisp Machines in the 1980s: Symbolics (3600, 3640, XL1200, MacIvory and other models), Lisp Machines Incorporated (LMI Lambda), Texas Instruments (Explorer and MicroExplorer) and Xerox (InterLisp-D workstations). The operating systems were written in Lisp Machine Lisp, InterLisp (Xerox) and later partly in Common Lisp.

The Multicians web site presents the story of the Multics operating system for people interested in the system's history, especially Multicians. The site's goals are to preserve the technical ideas and advances of Multics so others don't need to reinvent them. record the history of Multics, its builders, and its users before we all forget. give credit where it's due for important innovations. remember some good times and good people.