Oryx/Pecos

Last updated
Oryx/Pecos
Developer Bell Labs
OS family Real-time operating systems
Working stateCurrent
Source model Closed source
Platforms Avaya Definity G3 (Generic 3) switches
Kernel type Real-time
License Proprietary
Official website www.avaya.com

Oryx/Pecos [1] is a proprietary operating system developed from scratch by Bell Labs beginning in 1978 for the express purpose of running AT&T's large-scale PBX switching equipment. The operating system was first used with AT&T's flagship System 75, and until very recently, was used in all variations up through and including Definity G3 (Generic 3) switches, now manufactured by AT&T/Lucent Technologies spinoff Avaya. The last system based on Oryx/Pecos was the Avaya G3 CSI running release 13.1 Definity software. The formal end of sale was February 5, 2007. Although widely believed to be a Unix-like variant developed directly by Bell Labs, that is not the case, as it is not based on any version of Unix.

Contents

Description

Oryx/Pecos consists of a kernel (Oryx), and the associated processes running on top of it (Pecos). The system is named for Pecos Street, which bounds the Westminster, CO campus of then AT&T's Colorado Bell Labs location, while Oryx was the last word alphabetically before OS in the office dictionary and the Oryx was purportedly the origin of the unicorn myth. The system is loosely based on Thoth [2] (developed at the University of Waterloo) and DEMOS [3] (developed at Los Alamos Scientific Labs).

Features normally found in commercial operating systems are not found in Oryx/Pecos. Such features include:

There is one historical link between Oryx/Pecos and Unix: the authors of the above article proposed as a future development the implementation of a UNIX execution environment on top of Oryx/Pecos, and in fact, such a project was undertaken at Denver. However, that project never became an official product of AT&T or Lucent, even though it was completed successfully and introduced internally with the "Eli" version of Oryx/Pecos (5th release, or "E" release).

Persons working in large office environments and using AT&T, Lucent Technologies, or Avaya-branded telephones are likely to be using Oxyx-Pecos indirectly, but due to the narrow focus and proprietary nature of the operating system, it remains obscure. In 2005 Avaya discontinued the use of Oryx/Pecos as an operating system in itself, instead porting it to become an application that ran on Linux. The new incarnation is known as Communication Manager. Also in the early 2000s, the Definity One (later IP 600 and the S8100) was an earlier attempt to phase away from the OS. The Definity One ran on Windows NT 4.0 with a Linux emulator that also emulated the Oryx/Pecos system. Allegedly, according to administrators that used that specific system, it was a failure, and the attempt to have Windows run on top Oryx/Pecos and Linux was a problem. [4]

However, due to the robust nature of carrier-grade equipment, and the widespread use of AT&T/Lucent/Avaya PBX systems, Oryx/Pecos will most probably continue to be supported indefinitely.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KornShell</span> Bourne shell backward compatible Unix shell created by David Korn

KornShell (ksh) is a Unix shell which was developed by David Korn at Bell Labs in the early 1980s and announced at USENIX on July 14, 1983. The initial development was based on Bourne shell source code. Other early contributors were Bell Labs developers Mike Veach and Pat Sullivan, who wrote the Emacs and vi-style line editing modes' code, respectively. KornShell is backward-compatible with the Bourne shell and includes many features of the C shell, inspired by the requests of Bell Labs users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operating system</span> Software that manages computer hardware resources

An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plan 9 from Bell Labs</span> Distributed operating system

Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a distributed operating system which originated from the Computing Science Research Center (CSRC) at Bell Labs in the mid-1980s and built on UNIX concepts first developed there in the late 1960s. Since 2000, Plan 9 has been free and open-source. The final official release was in early 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acme (text editor)</span>

Acme is a text editor and graphical shell from the Plan 9 from Bell Labs operating system, designed and implemented by Rob Pike. It can use the Sam command language. The design of the interface was influenced by Oberon. It is different from other editing environments in that it acts as a 9P server. A distinctive element of the user interface is mouse chording.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Text-based user interface</span> Type of interface based on outputting to or controlling a text display

In computing, text-based user interfaces (TUI), is a retronym describing a type of user interface (UI) common as an early form of human–computer interaction, before the advent of bitmapped displays and modern conventional graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Like modern GUIs, they can use the entire screen area and may accept mouse and other inputs. They may also use color and often structure the display using box-drawing characters such as ┌ and ╣. The modern context of use is usually a terminal emulator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inferno (operating system)</span> Distributed operating system

Inferno is a distributed operating system started at Bell Labs and now developed and maintained by Vita Nuova Holdings as free software under the MIT License. Inferno was based on the experience gained with Plan 9 from Bell Labs, and the further research of Bell Labs into operating systems, languages, on-the-fly compilers, graphics, security, networking and portability. The name of the operating system, many of its associated programs, and that of the current company, were inspired by Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. In Italian, Inferno means "hell", of which there are nine circles in Dante's Divine Comedy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UNIX System V</span> Early commercial UNIX operating system

Unix System V is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by AT&T and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4. System V Release 4 (SVR4) was commercially the most successful version, being the result of an effort, marketed as Unix System Unification, which solicited the collaboration of the major Unix vendors. It was the source of several common commercial Unix features. System V is sometimes abbreviated to SysV.

Signals are standardized messages sent to a running program to trigger specific behavior, such as quitting or error handling. They are a limited form of inter-process communication (IPC), typically used in Unix, Unix-like, and other POSIX-compliant operating systems.

Multi-Environment Real-Time (MERT), later renamed UNIX Real-Time (UNIX-RT), is a hybrid time-sharing and real-time operating system developed in the 1970s at Bell Labs for use in embedded minicomputers. A version named Duplex Multi Environment Real Time (DMERT) was the operating system for the AT&T 3B20D telephone switching minicomputer, designed for high availability; DMERT was later renamed Unix RTR.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linux</span> Family of Unix-like operating systems

Linux is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution (distro), which includes the kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses and recommends the name "GNU/Linux" to emphasize the use and importance of GNU software in many distributions, causing some controversy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berkeley Software Distribution</span> Unix operating system

The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley. The term "BSD" commonly refers to its open-source descendants, including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and DragonFly BSD.

AUDIX is a voicemail server intended to be used with a Lucent/Avaya private branch exchange (PBX). AUDIX features many integrations with Avaya PBXes, such as capturing the extension of the calling party and announcing that person's name when announcing the attributes of a message, automatic identification of subscribers when they are dialing in to retrieve their messages, and activating and deactivating message-waiting indicators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unix-like</span> Operating system that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system

A Unix-like 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-like application is one that behaves like the corresponding Unix command or shell. Although there are general philosophies for Unix design, there is no technical standard defining the term, and opinions can differ about the degree to which a particular operating system or application is Unix-like.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unix</span> Family of computer operating systems

Unix is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others.

SimOS was a full system simulator, developed in the Stanford University in the late nineties in the research group of Mendel Rosenblum. It was enabled to run IRIX 5.3 on MIPS, and Unix variants on Alpha.

Comparison of user features of operating systems refers to a comparison of the general user features of major operating systems in a narrative format. It does not encompass a full exhaustive comparison or description of all technical details of all operating systems. It is a comparison of basic roles and the most prominent features. It also includes the most important features of the operating system's origins, historical development, and role.

References

  1. ↑ AT&T Technical Journal, v64, n1 part 2, January 1985, pp 251-268.
  2. ↑ Communications of the ACM, Volume 22 Issue 2, Feb. 1979, Pages 105-115.
  3. ↑ Software: Practice and Experience 16(12):1059-1076 · December 1986
  4. ↑ http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Avaya-List/message/22034 [ permanent dead link ]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.