Phar Lap Software, Inc., was a software company specializing in software development tools for

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 ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

s. The company was named after the champion New Zealand racehorse

Phar Lap Phar Lap (4 October 1926 – 5 April 1932) was a champion New Zealand–bred Thoroughbred racehorse who is widely regarded as New Zealand's greatest racehorse ever. Achieving incredible success during his distinguished career, his initial ...

. They were most noted for their software allowing developers to access memory beyond the 640

KiB The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...

limit of DOS (

DOS extender A DOS extender is a computer software program running under DOS that enables software to run in a protected mode environment even though the host operating system is only capable of operating in real mode. DOS extenders were initially develope ...

s) and were an author of the

VCPI In computing, the Virtual Control Program Interface (VCPI) is a specification published in 1989 by Phar Lap Software that allows a DOS program to run in protected mode, granting access to many features of the processor not available in real mode ...

standard. Phar Lap Software, Inc. was founded in April 1986 by Richard M. Smith, Robert Moote, and John M. Benfatto. Their first major success, ''386, DOS-Extender'', a

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32-bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculation ...

protected mode In computing, protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, is an operational mode of x86-compatible central processing units (CPUs). It allows system software to use features such as virtual memory, paging and safe multi-tasking d ...

development tool, was released in November 1986. Phar Lap’s product line was expanded to include ''386, VMM'', a

virtual memory In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a very l ...

add-in driver, ''LinkLoc'', a

linker Linker or linkers may refer to: Computing * Linker (computing), a computer program that takes one or more object files generated by a compiler or generated by an assembler and links them with libraries, generating an executable program or shar ...

-locator for embedded development; cross tools for embedded development; and ''286, DOS-Extender'', a DOS extender that

emulated In computing, an emulator is Computer hardware, hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run so ...

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...

environment, complete with the OS/2

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

and protected mode, in contrast with Microsoft's OS/2 API emulation, which ran OS/2 applications in

real mode Real mode, also called real address mode, is an operating mode of all x86-compatible CPUs. The mode gets its name from the fact that addresses in real mode always correspond to real locations in memory. Real mode is characterized by a 20-bit seg ...

and only supported a subset of the OS/2 API, called the

Family API OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 re ...

. Therefore, it was often bound with existing OS/2 applications, replacing Microsoft's OS/2 API emulation for those applications that needed access to extended memory in DOS. Later on the ''TNT''

was created, which was a version of ''386, DOS-Extender'' that emulated the

Win32 The Windows API, informally WinAPI, is Microsoft's core set of application programming interfaces (APIs) available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. The name Windows API collectively refers to several different platform implementations th ...

environment, complete with flat address space and threading. Again this DOS extender was often bound to existing Win32 applications.

MASM The Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) is an x86 assembler that uses the Intel syntax for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. Beginning with MASM 8.0, there are two versions of the assembler: One for 16-bit & 32-bit assembly sources, and another (ML64) ...

6.1 and the 16-bit version of the

Visual C++ Microsoft Visual C++ (MSVC) is a compiler for the C, C++ and C++/CX programming languages by Microsoft. MSVC is proprietary software; it was originally a standalone product but later became a part of Visual Studio and made available in both tria ...

1.0 compiler were Win32 applications written for a

beta version A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems sc ...

that was bound with the ''TNT DOS Extender'', which means it could not run on the final version of Windows NT until Beta2Fix.exe was run, which replaced all references to BETA2.DLL with NTDLL.DLL. This was fixed in MASM 6.11 and Visual C++ 1.5. Phar Lap developed the

Virtual Control Program Interface In computing, the Virtual Control Program Interface (VCPI) is a specification published in 1989 by Phar Lap Software that allows a DOS program to run in protected mode, granting access to many features of the processor not available in real mode ...

(VCPI) specification in cooperation with

Quarterdeck Office Systems Quarterdeck Office Systems, later Quarterdeck Corporation (NASDAQ: QDEK), was an American computer software company. It was founded by Therese Myers and Gary Pope in 1981 and incorporated in 1982. Their offices were initially located at 150 Pico B ...

, who produced the

DESQview DESQview (DV) is a text mode multitasking operating environment developed by Quarterdeck Office Systems which enjoyed modest popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Running on top of DOS, it allows users to run multiple programs concurrentl ...

task-switching software. Phar Lap was also a member of the 12-firm committee that designed the

DOS Protected Mode Interface In computing, the DOS Protected Mode Interface (DPMI) is a specification introduced in 1989 which allows a DOS program to run in protected mode, giving access to many features of the new PC processors of the time not available in real mode. It w ...

(DPMI). VCPI and DPMI are industry standards allowing DOS extenders to co-exist with

expanded memory In DOS memory management, expanded memory is a system of bank switching that provided additional memory to DOS programs beyond the limit of conventional memory (640 KiB). ''Expanded memory'' is an umbrella term for several incompatible tec ...

(EMS) emulators and multi-tasking environments. Phar Lap received several major PC industry awards for VCPI, ''386, DOS-Extender'', and ''286, DOS-Extender''. 32-bit Windows applications could directly address all the memory the

personal computer hardware Computer hardware includes the physical parts of a computer, such as the computer case, case, central processing unit (CPU), Random-access memory, random access memory (RAM), Computer monitor, monitor, Computer mouse, mouse, Computer keyboard, ...

would support, so memory extenders were no longer needed. Phar Lap is now part of

IntervalZero IntervalZero, Inc. develops hard real-time software and its symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) enabled RTX and RTX64 software transform the Microsoft Windows general-purpose operating system (GPOS) into a real-time operating system (RTOS). Interval ...

, formerly

Ardence Ardence was a software company headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts with representatives in Washington, D.C.; Virginia Beach, VA; Chicago, Chicago, IL; Denton, TX; and in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India. It developed a software-stream ...

, which produces, among other products, the

Phar Lap ETS Phar Lap (4 October 1926 – 5 April 1932) was a champion New Zealand–bred Thoroughbred horse racing, racehorse who is widely regarded as New Zealand's greatest racehorse ever. Achieving incredible success during his distinguished career, ...

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 ...

,Phar Lap ETS – Real-time Operating System
used for instance on

LabVIEW Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench (LabVIEW) is a system-design platform and development environment for a visual programming language from National Instruments. The graphical language is named "G"; not to be confused with G-c ...

real-time targets.

References

External links

*
A Phar Lap magazine ad (''Scientific American'', v.165, No.3, p.149), on last page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Phar Lap (Company) Defunct software companies of the United States American companies established in 1986 Software companies established in 1986 Companies based in Cambridge, Massachusetts 1986 establishments in Massachusetts

See also

References

External links