Atlas Supervisor
Encyclopedia
The Atlas Supervisor was the program which managed the allocation of processing resources of Manchester University's
Atlas Computer
so that the machine was able to act on many tasks
and user programs concurrently
.
Its various functions included running the Atlas computer's virtual memory (Atlas Supervisor paper, section 3, Store Organisation) and is ‘considered by many to be the first recognisable modern operating system
’. Brinch Hansen described it as "the most significant breakthrough in the history of operating systems."
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...
Atlas Computer
Atlas Computer (Manchester)
The Atlas Computer was a joint development between the University of Manchester, Ferranti, and Plessey. The first Atlas, installed at Manchester University and officially commissioned in 1962, was one of the world's first supercomputers, considered to be the most powerful computer in the world at...
so that the machine was able to act on many tasks
Computer multitasking
In computing, multitasking is a method where multiple tasks, also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. In the case of a computer with a single CPU, only one task is said to be running at any point in time, meaning that the CPU is actively executing instructions for...
and user programs concurrently
Time-sharing
Time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking. Its introduction in the 1960s, and emergence as the prominent model of computing in the 1970s, represents a major technological shift in the history of computing.By allowing a large...
.
Its various functions included running the Atlas computer's virtual memory (Atlas Supervisor paper, section 3, Store Organisation) and is ‘considered by many to be the first recognisable modern operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
’. Brinch Hansen described it as "the most significant breakthrough in the history of operating systems."