|
PowerPC Reference Platform
PowerPC Reference Platform (PReP) was a standard system architecture for PowerPC-based computer systems (as well as a reference implementation) developed at the same time as the PowerPC processor architecture. Published by IBM in 1994, it allowed hardware vendors to build a machine that could run various operating systems, including Windows NT, OS/2, Solaris, Taligent and AIX. One of the stated goals of the PReP specification was to leverage standard PC hardware. Apple, wishing to seamlessly transition its Macintosh computers to PowerPC, found this to be particularly problematic. As it appeared no one was particularly happy with PReP, a new standard, the Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP), was developed and published in late 1995, incorporating the elements of both PReP and the Power Macintosh architecture. Key to CHRP was the requirement for Open Firmware (also required in PReP-compliant systems delivered after June 1, 1995), which gave vendors greatly improved supp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
System Architecture
A system architecture is the conceptual model that defines the structure, behavior, and views of a system. An architecture description is a formal description and representation of a system, organized in a way that supports reasoning about the structures and behaviors of the system. A system architecture can consist of system components and the sub-systems developed, that will work together to implement the overall system. There have been efforts to formalize languages to describe system architecture, collectively these are called architecture description languages (ADLs). Overview Various organizations can define systems architecture in different ways, including: * The fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and to the environment, and the principles governing its design and evolution. * A representation of a system, including a mapping of functionality onto hardware and software components, a mapping of the softwa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open Firmware
Open Firmware is a standard defining the interfaces of a computer firmware system, formerly endorsed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). It originated at Sun Microsystems where it was known as OpenBoot, and has been used by multiple vendors including Sun Microsystems, Sun, Apple Inc., Apple, IBM and Arm Holdings, ARM. Open Firmware allows a system to load platform (computing), platform-independent device driver, drivers directly from a PCI device, improving compatibility. Open Firmware may be accessed through its command line interface, which uses the Forth programming language. History Open Firmware was described by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, IEEE standard as ''IEEE 1275-1994''. This standard was not reaffirmed by the Open Firmware Working Group (OFWG) since 1998, and was therefore officially withdrawn by IEEE in May 2005. Features Open Firmware defines a standard way to describe the hardware configuration of a syst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IBM ThinkPad Power Series
The ThinkPad Power Series (and subsequent IBM RS/6000 Model 860 Notebook) is a laptop series by IBM based on PowerPC. History The first PowerPC notebook released by IBM was the RS/6000 Model N40, which was developed together with Tadpole Computer. It was announced in March 1994. The start of the sale was announced in October 1994. Specifications Most of the 800 Series laptops used the PowerPC 603e CPU, at speeds of 100 MHz, or 166 MHz in the 860 model, although the earliest 800 (Type 6020), the direct ancestor of the 850, used a 603 and was apparently only offered to developers. All units used SCSI-2 instead of IDE hard disks, and the ID of every SCSI device on the system could be configured in the cursor driven GUI-based BIOS. Another unusual aspect of the series is their unique startup chime, reminiscent of Apple Macintosh computers of the time. The PowerPC ThinkPad line was considerably more expensive than the standard x86 ThinkPads — even a modestly configu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PowerOpen Environment
The PowerOpen Environment (POE), created in 1991 from the AIM alliance, is an open standard for running a Unix-based operating system on the PowerPC computer architecture. History The AIM alliance was announced on October 2, 1991, yielding the historic first technology partnership between Apple and IBM. One of its many lofty goals was to somehow eventually merge Apple's user-friendly graphical interface and desktop applications market with IBM's highly scalable Unix server market, allowing the two companies to enter what Apple believed to be an emerging "general desktop open systems market". This was touched upon by Apple's November 1991 announcement of A/UX 3.0. The upcoming A/UX 4.0 (never actually released) would target the PowerOpen Environment ABI, merge features of IBM's AIX variant of Unix into A/UX, and use the OSF/1 kernel from the Open Software Foundation. A/UX 3.0 would serve as an "important migration path" to this new system, making Unix and System 7 applications ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, packaged as a Linux distribution (distro), which includes the kernel and supporting system software and library (computing), libraries—most of which are provided by third parties—to create a complete operating system, designed as a clone of Unix and released under the copyleft GPL license. List of Linux distributions, Thousands of Linux distributions exist, many based directly or indirectly on other distributions; popular Linux distributions include Debian, Fedora Linux, Linux Mint, Arch Linux, and Ubuntu, while commercial distributions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise, and ChromeOS. Linux distributions are frequently used in server platforms. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Power ISA
Power ISA is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) currently developed by the OpenPOWER Foundation, led by IBM. It was originally developed by IBM and the now-defunct Power.org industry group. Power ISA is an evolution of the PowerPC ISA, created by the mergers of the core PowerPC ISA and the optional Book E for embedded applications. The merger of these two components in 2006 was led by Power.org founders IBM and Freescale Semiconductor. Prior to version 3.0, the ISA is divided into several categories. Processors implement a set of these categories as required for their task. Different classes of processors are required to implement certain categories, for example a server-class processor includes the categories: ''Base'', ''Server'', ''Floating-Point'', ''64-Bit'', etc. All processors implement the Base category. Power ISA is a RISC load/store architecture. It has multiple sets of registers: * ''32'' × 32-bit or 64-bit general- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Power Architecture Platform Reference
{{Short description, Open computing platform project Power Architecture Platform Reference (PAPR) is an initiative from Power.org to make a new open computing platform based on Power ISA processors. It follows two previous attempts made in the 1990s, PReP and CHRP. The PAPR specification provides the foundation for development of standard server computers. Various operating systems like Linux and IBM AIX rely on the PAPR interface to run on Power-based hardware. PAPR is Power.org's move toward what IBM did originally with PReP, in that it defines a common hardware definition and software/firmware platform under a set of requirements. In practice, the PAPR is an extension to the Open Firmware specification. Since 2013, extensions have been done by the OpenPOWER Foundation, which released a slightly reduced public version of the PAPR standard for running Linux on Power hardware (called LoPAPR In 2020, LoPAPR was renamed to Linux on Power Architecture Reference (LoPARwith the release ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
QEMU
The Quick Emulator (QEMU) is a free and open-source emulator that uses dynamic binary translation to emulate a computer's processor; that is, it translates the emulated binary codes to an equivalent binary format which is executed by the machine. It provides a variety of hardware and device models for the virtual machine, enabling it to run different guest operating systems. QEMU can be used with a Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) to emulate hardware at near-native speeds. Additionally, it supports user-level processes, allowing applications compiled for one processor architecture to run on another. QEMU supports the emulation of x86, ARM, PowerPC, RISC-V, and other architectures. Licensing QEMU is free software developed by Fabrice Bellard. Different components of QEMU are licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), BSD license, GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), or other GPL-compatible licenses. Operating modes QEMU has multiple operating modes: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RTEMS
Real-Time Executive for Multiprocessor Systems (RTEMS), formerly Real-Time Executive for Missile Systems, and then Real-Time Executive for Military Systems, is a real-time operating system (RTOS) designed for embedded systems. It is free and open-source software. Development began in the late 1980s with early versions available via File Transfer Protocol (ftp) as early as 1993. OAR Corporation managed the RTEMS project in cooperation with a steering committee until the early 2000's when project management evolved into a subset of the core developers managing the project. In 2014, hosting was moved from OAR Corporation to the Oregon State UniversitOpen Source Lab hosting Design RTEMS is designed for real-time embedded systems and to support various open application programming interface (API) standards including Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) and μITRON (dropped in RTEMS 4.10). The API now known as the Classic RTEMS API was originally based on the Real-Time Executiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NetBSD
NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was fork (software development), forked. It continues to be actively developed and is available for many platforms, including servers, desktops, handheld devices, and embedded systems. The NetBSD project focuses on code clarity, careful design, and portability across many computer architectures. Its source code is publicly available and Permissive free software licence, permissively licensed. History NetBSD was originally derived from the 4.3BSD-Reno release of the Berkeley Software Distribution from the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, via its Net/2 source code release and the 386BSD project. The NetBSD project began as a result of frustration within the 386BSD developer community with the pace and direction of the operating system's development. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Debian
Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kernel, and is the basis of List of Linux distributions#Debian-based, many other Linux distributions. As of September 2023, Debian is the second-oldest Linux distribution still in active development: only Slackware is older. The project is coordinated over the Internet by a team of volunteers guided by the List of Debian project leaders, Debian Project Leader and three foundational documents: the Debian Social Contract, the Debian Constitution, and the Debian Free Software Guidelines. In general, Debian has been developed openly and distributed freely according to some of the principles of the GNU Project and Free Software. Because of this, the Free Software Foundation sponsored the project from November 1994 to November 1995. However, Debian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Power Macintosh
The Power Macintosh, later Power Mac, is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Inc., Apple Computer, Inc as the core of the Mac (computer), Macintosh brand from March 1994 until August 2006. Described by ''Macworld'' as "the most important technical evolution of the Macintosh since the Macintosh II, Mac II debuted in 1987", it is the first computer with the PowerPC CPU architecture, the flagship product of the AIM alliance. Existing software for the Motorola 68040, Motorola 68k processors of previous Macintoshes do not run on it natively, so a Mac 68k emulator is in System 7.1.2. It provides good compatibility, at about two-thirds of the speed of contemporary Macintosh Quadra machines. The Power Macintosh replaced the Quadra and was initially sold in the same enclosures. Over the next twelve years, it evolved through a succession of enclosure designs, a rename to "Power Mac", five major generations of PowerPC chips, and a great deal of press co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
