EOS (operating system)
Encyclopedia
EOS was the name of an operating system
developed by ETA Systems
(a spin-off division of Control Data Corporation
) for use in their ETA10
line of supercomputer
s in the 1980s.
EOS was preceded by and was binary executable compatible with the CDC VSOS operating system for Cyber 205
. Like VSOS, EOS had demand paged virtual memory
(the VS part) with 2 pages sizes for improved virtual memory performance with the ETA's faster hardware pipelines. Though it had roots in the interactive Livermore Time Sharing System
(LTSS), VSOS was focused as a batch-oriented
operating system. VSOS was not run at very many institutions and its application-oriented performance, while the historic focus for supercomputing, set its features behind the times because of its limited user base.
To address this feature deficiency and to make the operating system more "normal to use", the VSOS characteristics were married with UNIX
characteristics in a hybrid OS. The OS was intended to be effective for both batch work that drove the hardware to its maximum or for interactive use in development from a UNIX workstation.
EOS was written mainly in Cybil
, a Pascal
-like programming language
created by Control Data for its later Cyber operating systems. It was a new effort, as VSOS was implemented in IMPL, a Fortran
-like language created for the LTSS implementation. The command line appearance of all these systems was similar to the lineage going back to UNIVAC
EXEC*8.
EOS was released with early hardware deliveries and had some of the typical problems for early OS releases. Some customers delayed payment for their supercomputer installations.
ETA later released a port of UNIX for the ETA-10 line, which was more quickly accepted by their customer base. However, this port started as a single-processor kernel which did not transparently exploit the hardware architecture with up to 8 large application CPU
s for applications.
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...
developed by ETA Systems
ETA Systems
ETA Systems was a supercomputer company spun off from Control Data Corporation in the early 1980s in order to regain a footing in the supercomputer business. They successfully delivered an excellent machine, the ETA-10, but lost money continually while doing so...
(a spin-off division of Control Data Corporation
Control Data Corporation
Control Data Corporation was a supercomputer firm. For most of the 1960s, it built the fastest computers in the world by far, only losing that crown in the 1970s after Seymour Cray left the company to found Cray Research, Inc....
) for use in their ETA10
ETA10
The ETA10 was a line of vector supercomputers designed, manufactured, and marketed by ETA Systems, a spin-off division of Control Data Corporation . The ETA10 was announced in 1986, with the first deliveries made in early 1987...
line of supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
s in the 1980s.
EOS was preceded by and was binary executable compatible with the CDC VSOS operating system for Cyber 205
CDC Cyber
The CDC Cyber range of mainframe-class supercomputers were the primary products of Control Data Corporation during the 1970s and 1980s. In their day, they were the computer architecture of choice for scientific and mathematically intensive computing...
. Like VSOS, EOS had demand paged virtual memory
Virtual memory
In computing, virtual memory is a memory management technique developed for multitasking kernels. This technique virtualizes a computer architecture's various forms of computer data storage , allowing a program to be designed as though there is only one kind of memory, "virtual" memory, which...
(the VS part) with 2 pages sizes for improved virtual memory performance with the ETA's faster hardware pipelines. Though it had roots in the interactive Livermore Time Sharing System
Livermore Time Sharing System
The Livermore Time Sharing System was a supercomputer operating system originally developed by the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories for the CDC 7600 series of supercomputers....
(LTSS), VSOS was focused as a batch-oriented
Batch processing
Batch processing is execution of a series of programs on a computer without manual intervention.Batch jobs are set up so they can be run to completion without manual intervention, so all input data is preselected through scripts or command-line parameters...
operating system. VSOS was not run at very many institutions and its application-oriented performance, while the historic focus for supercomputing, set its features behind the times because of its limited user base.
To address this feature deficiency and to make the operating system more "normal to use", the VSOS characteristics were married with UNIX
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
characteristics in a hybrid OS. The OS was intended to be effective for both batch work that drove the hardware to its maximum or for interactive use in development from a UNIX workstation.
EOS was written mainly in Cybil
Cybil (computer language)
Cybil the Cyber Implementation Language of the Control Data Network Operating System was a Pascal-like language developed at Control Data Corporation....
, a Pascal
Pascal (programming language)
Pascal is an influential imperative and procedural programming language, designed in 1968/9 and published in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth as a small and efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring.A derivative known as Object Pascal...
-like programming language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
created by Control Data for its later Cyber operating systems. It was a new effort, as VSOS was implemented in IMPL, a Fortran
Fortran
Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...
-like language created for the LTSS implementation. The command line appearance of all these systems was similar to the lineage going back to UNIVAC
UNIVAC
UNIVAC is the name of a business unit and division of the Remington Rand company formed by the 1950 purchase of the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, founded four years earlier by ENIAC inventors J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, and the associated line of computers which continues to this day...
EXEC*8.
EOS was released with early hardware deliveries and had some of the typical problems for early OS releases. Some customers delayed payment for their supercomputer installations.
ETA later released a port of UNIX for the ETA-10 line, which was more quickly accepted by their customer base. However, this port started as a single-processor kernel which did not transparently exploit the hardware architecture with up to 8 large application CPU
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
s for applications.