FLEX is a discontinued single-tasking
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
developed by
Technical Systems Consultants (TSC) of
West Lafayette, Indiana
West Lafayette ( ) is a city in Wabash and Tippecanoe Townships, Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States, approximately northwest of the state capital of Indianapolis and southeast of Chicago. West Lafayette is directly across the Wabash ...
, for the
Motorola 6800
The 6800 ("''sixty-eight hundred''") is an 8-bit microprocessor designed and first manufactured by Motorola in 1974. The MC6800 microprocessor was part of the M6800 Microcomputer System (later dubbed ''68xx'') that also included serial and parall ...
in 1976.
Overview
The original version was distributed on
8-inch floppy disks; the (smaller) version for 5.25-inch floppies is called mini-Flex. It was also later ported to the
Motorola 6809
The Motorola 6809 ("''sixty-eight-oh-nine''") is an 8-bit microprocessor with some 16-bit features. It was designed by Motorola's Terry Ritter and Joel Boney and introduced in 1978. Although source compatible with the earlier Motorola 6800, the ...
; that version is called Flex09. All versions are text-based and intended for use on display devices ranging from printing terminals like the
Teletype Model 33
The Teletype Model 33 is an electromechanical teleprinter designed for light-duty office use. It is less rugged and cost less than earlier Teletype models. The Teletype Corporation introduced the Model 33 as a commercial product in 1963, after ...
ASR to smart terminals. While no graphic displays are supported by TSC software, some hardware supports elementary graphics and pointing devices.
FLEX is a disk-based operating system, using 256-byte sectors on soft-sectored floppies; the disk structure uses linkage bytes in each sector to indicate the next sector in a file or free list. The directory structure is simplified as a result. TSC (and others) provide several programming languages including
BASIC
Basic or BASIC may refer to:
Science and technology
* BASIC, a computer programming language
* Basic (chemistry), having the properties of a base
* Basic access authentication, in HTTP
Entertainment
* Basic (film), ''Basic'' (film), a 2003 film
...
in two flavors (standard and extended) and a tokenizing version of extended BASIC called Pre-compiled BASIC,
FORTH,
C,
FORTRAN, and
PASCAL.
TSC also wrote a version of FLEX, ''Smoke Signal DOS'', for the California hardware manufacturer
Smoke Signal Broadcasting; this version uses forward and reverse linkage bytes in each sector which increase disk reliability at the expense of compatibility and speed.
Later, TSC introduced the
multitasking,
multi-user
Multi-user software is computer software that allows access by multiple users of a computer. Time-sharing systems are multi-user systems. Most batch processing systems for mainframe computers may also be considered "multi-user", to avoid leavi ...
,
Unix-like
A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X, *nix 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 Uni ...
UniFLEX operating system, which requires
DMA disk controllers, 8" disk, and sold in small numbers. Several of the TSC computer languages were ported to UniFLEX.
During the early 1980s, FLEX was offered by
Compusense Ltd as an operating system for the 6809-based
Dragon 64 home computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a s ...
.
Commands
The following
commands are supported by different versions of the FLEX operating system.
FLEX 9.0 User’s Manual
/ref>
* APPEND
* ASN
* BACKUP
In information technology, a backup, or data backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form, referring to the process of doing so, is "wikt:back ...
* BUILD
* CAT
* COPY
* COPYNEW
* C4MAT
* CLEAN
* DATE
* DELETE
* ECHO
In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the lis ...
* EXEC
* FIX
* GET
* I
* JUMP
* LINK
* LIST
* MEMTEST1
* MON
* N
* NEWDISK
* O
* P
* P.COR
* PO
* PRINT
* PROT
* PSP
* Q
* QCHECK
* READPROM
* RENAME
* RM
* S
* SAVE
* SAVE.LOW
* SBOX
* SP
* STARTUP
* TOUCH
The somatosensory system, or somatic sensory system is a subset of the sensory nervous system. The main functions of the somatosensory system are the perception of external stimuli, the perception of internal stimuli, and the regulation of bo ...
* TTYSET
* UCAL
* USEMF
* VER
* VERIFY
* VERSION
* WRITPROM
* XOUT
* Y
See also
* Microsoft BASIC-68 for FLEX
* Microsoft BASIC-69 for FLEX
References
External links
FLEX User Group
SWTPC 6800 FLEX 2 and 6809 FLEX 9 / UniFLEX / OS9 Level 1 emulator
The Missing 6809 UniFLEX Archive
DragonWiki
FLEX Software Archive
{{Disk operating systems
Discontinued operating systems
Disk operating systems
TRS-80 Color Computer
1976 software