Idris is a discontinued multi-tasking,
Unix-like
A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...
, multi-user,
real-time operating system
A real-time operating system (RTOS) is an operating system (OS) for real-time applications that processes data and events that have critically defined time constraints. An RTOS is distinct from a time-sharing operating system, such as Unix, which m ...
released by
Whitesmiths
Whitesmiths Ltd. was a software company founded in New York City by P. J. Plauger, Mark Krieger and Gabriel Pham, and last located in Westford, Massachusetts. It sold a Unix-like operating system called Idris, as well as the first commercial C c ...
, of
Westford, Massachusetts
Westford is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was at 24,643 at the time of the 2020 Census.
History
Westford began as 'West Chelmsford', a village in the town of Chelmsford. The village of West Chelmsfor ...
. The product was commercially available from 1979 through 1988.
Background
Idris was originally written for the
PDP-11
The PDP-11 is a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a set of products in the Programmed Data Processor (PDP) series. In total, around 600,000 PDP-11s of all models were sol ...
by
P. J. Plauger
Phillip James (P.J. or Bill) Plauger (; born January 13, 1944, Petersburg, West Virginia) is an author, entrepreneur and computer programmer. He has written and co-written articles and books about programming style, software tools, and the C pr ...
, who started working on Idris in August 1978. It was
binary compatible
Binary-code compatibility (binary compatible or object-code-compatible) is a property of a computer system, meaning that it can run the same executable code, typically machine code for a general-purpose computer CPU, that another computer syste ...
with
Unix V6 on PDP-11, but it could run on non-
memory managed systems (like
LSI-11 or
PDP-11/23) as well. The
kernel
Kernel may refer to:
Computing
* Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems
* Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution
* Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming
* Kernel method, in machine learn ...
required 31
KB of
RAM
Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to:
Animals
* A male sheep
* Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish
People
* Ram (given name)
* Ram (surname)
* Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director
* RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch
* ...
, and the
C compiler
This page is intended to list all current compilers, compiler generators, interpreters, translators, tool foundations, assemblers, automatable command line interfaces ( shells), etc.
Ada Compilers
ALGOL 60 compilers
ALGOL 68 compilers
cf. ...
(provided along with the standard V6 toolset) had more or less the same size.
Ports
Although Idris was initially available for the PDP-11, it was later
ported to run on a number of platforms, such as the
VAX,
Motorola 68000
The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Secto ...
,
System/370
The IBM System/370 (S/370) is a model range of IBM mainframe computers announced on June 30, 1970, as the successors to the System/360 family. The series mostly maintains backward compatibility with the S/360, allowing an easy migration path ...
and
Intel 8086
The 8086 (also called iAPX 86) is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and June 8, 1978, when it was released. The Intel 8088, released July 1, 1979, is a slightly modified chip with an external 8-bit data bus (allo ...
. There was also a version that used bank-switching for memory management, that ran on the
Intel 8080
The Intel 8080 (''"eighty-eighty"'') is the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. It first appeared in April 1974 and is an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibil ...
.
In 1986, David M. Stanhope at
Computer Tools International
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These progr ...
ported Idris to the
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first per ...
and developed its
ROM boot
cartridge
Cartridge may refer to:
Objects
* Cartridge (firearms), a type of modern ammunition
* ROM cartridge, a removable component in an electronic device
* Cartridge (respirator), a type of filter used in respirators
Other uses
* Cartridge (surname), a ...
. This work also included a port of
X to Idris. Computer Tools and Whitesmiths offered it to
Atari
Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, Ca ...
as a replacement for
Atari TOS
TOS (The Operating System) is the operating system of the Atari ST range of computers. This range includes the 520ST and 1040ST, their STF/M/FM and STE variants and the Mega ST/STE. Later, 32-bit machines (Atari TT030, TT, Atari Falcon, Falcon030 ...
, but eventually marketed it directly to ST enthusiasts.
A specific version of Idris (CoIdris) was packaged as a
.COM file under
DOS
DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems.
DOS may also refer to:
Computing
* Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel
* Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...
and used it for low level
I/O services.
Idris was ported to the
Apple Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software ...
(as MacIdris) by John O'Brien (of Whitesmiths Australia) and remained available until the early 1990s. MacIdris ran as an application under the
Finder or
Multifinder
MultiFinder is an extension for the Apple Macintosh's classic Mac OS, introduced on August 11, 1987 and included with System Software 5. It adds cooperative multitasking of several applications at once – a great improvement over the previou ...
.
MacWorld
''Macworld'' is a website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG Inc. It started life as a print magazine in 1984 and had the largest audited circulation (both total and newsstand) of Macin ...
November 1989, page 1
quoted
in comp.sys.mac
After Whitesmiths had been merged with
Intermetrics
AverStar (formerly Intermetrics, Inc.) was a software company founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1969 by several veterans of M.I.T.'s Instrumentation Laboratory who had worked on the software for NASA's Apollo Program including the Apollo ...
, Idris along with its development
toolchain
In software, a toolchain is a set of programming tools that is used to perform a complex software development task or to create a software product, which is typically another computer program or a set of related programs. In general, the tools for ...
was ported by Real Time Systems Ltd to the
INMOS T800 transputer
The transputer is a series of pioneering microprocessors from the 1980s, intended for parallel computing. To support this, each transputer had its own integrated memory and serial communication links to exchange data with other transputers. T ...
architecture for the
Parsytec SN1000 multiprocessor.
References
{{Unix-like
Discontinued operating systems
PDP-11
Unix variants
68k architecture