A new general-purpose operating system

Abstract

The current generation of widely-used, multi-user, general-purpose operating systems have evolved from versions that were designed when many of the issues that are important today were unimportant or not even thought of. This evolution has not been totally successful. In particular the current generation is ill suited for implementation on loosely-coupled multi-processors. A new operating system, designed with current requirements in mind, and flexible enough to adapt successfully to likely future requirements, has been developed as part of a project to build a loosely-coupled multi-processor system that should have the performance and functionality of a 'super main-frame' computer . This paper concentrates on describing the fundamental mechanisms of the operating system: processes, inter-process communication, and servers. It also briefly outlines the support provided for data security, database applications, and real-time applications.