TRIPOS

Last updated

TRIPOS
Developer University of Cambridge, University of Bath, MetaComCo, Open G I
Written in BCPL, Assembly language
Working stateDiscontinued
Initial release1978;46 years ago (1978)
Platforms PDP-11, Computer Automation LSI4, Data General Nova, Motorola 68000, Intel 8086, Cintcode BCPL (VM)

TRIPOS (TRIvial Portable Operating System) is a computer operating system. Development started in 1976 at the Computer Laboratory of Cambridge University and it was headed by Dr. Martin Richards. The first version appeared in January 1978 and it originally ran on a PDP-11 [ citation needed ]. Later it was ported to the Computer Automation LSI4 and the Data General Nova. Work on a Motorola 68000 version started in 1981 at the University of Bath. MetaComCo acquired the rights to the 68000 version and continued development until TRIPOS was chosen by Commodore in March 1985 to form part of an operating system for their new Amiga computer; it was also used at Cambridge as part of the Cambridge Distributed Computing System.

Contents

Students in the Computer Science department at Cambridge affectionately refer to TRIPOS as the Terribly Reliable, Incredibly Portable Operating System. The name TRIPOS also refers to the Tripos system of undergraduate courses and examinations, which is unique to Cambridge University.

Influences on the Amiga computer

In July 1985, the Amiga was introduced, incorporating TRIPOS in the AmigaDOS module of AmigaOS. AmigaDOS included a command-line interface and the Amiga File System. The entire AmigaDOS module was originally written in BCPL (an ancestor of the C programming language), the same language used to write TRIPOS. AmigaDOS would later be rewritten in C from AmigaOS 2.x onwards, retaining backwards compatibility with 1.x up until AmigaOS 4 (completely rewritten in C) when AmigaDOS abandoned its BCPL legacy.

Features

TRIPOS provided features such as pre-emptive multi-tasking (using strict-priority scheduling), a hierarchical file system and multiple command line interpreters.

The most important TRIPOS concepts have been the non-memory-management approach (meaning no checks are performed to stop programs from using unallocated memory) and message passing by means of passing pointers instead of copying message contents. Those two concepts together allowed for sending and receiving over 1250 packets per second on a 10 MHz Motorola 68010 CPU.

Most of TRIPOS was implemented in BCPL. The kernel and device drivers were implemented in assembly language.

One notable feature of TRIPOS/BCPL was its cultural use of shared libraries, untypical at the time, resulting in small and therefore fast loading utilities. For example, many of the standard system utilities were well below 0.5 Kbytes in size, compared to a typical minimum of about 20 Kbytes for functionally equivalent code on a modern Unix or Linux.[ clarification needed ]

TRIPOS was ported to a number of machines, including the Data General Nova 2, the Computer Automation LSI4, Motorola 68000 and Intel 8086- based hardware. It was offered as the standard operating system on the Microbox III, a computer based on the Motorola 68010 produced by Micro Concepts, alongside alternatives such as CP/M and OS-9. [1] It included support for the Cambridge Ring local area network. More recently,[ when? ] Martin Richards produced a port of TRIPOS to run under Linux, using Cintcode BCPL virtual machine.

As of February 2020, TRIPOS is still actively maintained by Open G I Ltd. (formerly Misys Financial Systems) in Worcestershire, UK. Many British insurance brokers have a Linux/Intel based[ clarification needed ] TRIPOS system serving networked workstations over a TCP/IP connection—the systems are used to run Open G I's BROOMS Application suite.[ citation needed ] Open G I have added a number of features to support the modern office such as the ability to integrate into many mainstream applications and services such as SQL server, Citrix XENAPP, terminal servers, etc.

Commands

The following list of commands is supported by the TRIPOS CLI. [2]

Cintpos

Cintpos is an experimental interpretive version of TRIPOS which runs on the Cintcode BCPL virtual machine, also developed by Martin Richards.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amiga</span> Family of personal computers sold by Commodore

Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-bit or 16/32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphics and audio compared to previous 8-bit systems. These include the Atari ST—released earlier the same year—as well as the Macintosh and Acorn Archimedes. The Amiga differs from its contemporaries through custom hardware to accelerate graphics and sound, including sprites, a blitter, and four channels of sample-based audio. It runs a pre-emptive multitasking operating system called AmigaOS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amiga 1000</span> 1985 personal computer

The Amiga 1000, also known as the A1000, is the first personal computer released by Commodore International in the Amiga line. It combines the 16/32-bit Motorola 68000 CPU which was powerful by 1985 standards with one of the most advanced graphics and sound systems in its class. It runs a preemptive multitasking operating system that fits into 256 KB of read-only memory and was shipped with 256 KB of RAM. The primary memory can be expanded internally with a manufacturer-supplied 256 KB module for a total of 512 KB of RAM. Using the external slot the primary memory can be expanded up to 8.5 MB.

BCPL is a procedural, imperative, and structured programming language. Originally intended for writing compilers for other languages, BCPL is no longer in common use. However, its influence is still felt because a stripped down and syntactically changed version of BCPL, called B, was the language on which the C programming language was based. BCPL introduced several features of many modern programming languages, including using curly braces to delimit code blocks. BCPL was first implemented by Martin Richards of the University of Cambridge in 1967.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motorola 68060</span> Motorola 680x0 microprocessor, released in April 1994

The Motorola 68060 ("sixty-eight-oh-sixty") is a 32-bit microprocessor from Motorola released in April 1994. It is the successor to the Motorola 68040 and is the highest performing member of the 68000 series. Two derivatives were produced, the 68LC060 and the 68EC060.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PowerPC</span> RISC instruction set architecture by AIM alliance

PowerPC is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM. PowerPC, as an evolving instruction set, has been named Power ISA since 2006, while the old name lives on as a trademark for some implementations of Power Architecture–based processors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motorola 68010</span> Microprocessor model

The Motorola MC68010 and Motorola MC68012 are 16/32-bit microprocessors from Motorola, released in 1982 as successors to the Motorola 68000. The 68010 and 68012 added virtualization features, optimized loops and fixed several small flaws to the 68000. The MC68010 variants were pin compatible with its predecessor while the MC68012 is an 84-pin PGA version with its directly accessible memory space extended to 2 GiB.

OS-9 is a family of real-time, process-based, multitasking, multi-user operating systems, developed in the 1980s, originally by Microware Systems Corporation for the Motorola 6809 microprocessor. It was purchased by Radisys Corp in 2001, and was purchased again in 2013 by its current owner Microware LP.

The Motorola 68000 series is a family of 32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and were the primary competitors of Intel's x86 microprocessors. They were best known as the processors used in the early Apple Macintosh, the Sharp X68000, the Commodore Amiga, the Sinclair QL, the Atari ST and Falcon, the Atari Jaguar, the Sega Genesis and Sega CD, the Philips CD-i, the Capcom System I (Arcade), the AT&T UNIX PC, the Tandy Model 16/16B/6000, the Sun Microsystems Sun-1, Sun-2 and Sun-3, the NeXT Computer, NeXTcube, NeXTstation, and NeXTcube Turbo, early Silicon Graphics IRIS workstations, the Aesthedes, computers from MASSCOMP, the Texas Instruments TI-89/TI-92 calculators, the Palm Pilot, the Control Data Corporation CDCNET Device Interface, the VTech Precomputer Unlimited and the Space Shuttle. Although no modern desktop computers are based on processors in the 680x0 series, derivative processors are still widely used in embedded systems.

MetaComCo (MCC) was a computer systems software company started in 1981 and based in Bristol, England by Peter Mackeonis and Derek Budge. A division of Tenchstar, Ltd.

AmigaDOS is the disk operating system of the AmigaOS, which includes file systems, file and directory manipulation, the command-line interface, and file redirection.

Originally, the word computing was synonymous with counting and calculating, and the science and technology of mathematical calculations. Today, "computing" means using computers and other computing machines. It includes their operation and usage, the electrical processes carried out within the computing hardware itself, and the theoretical concepts governing them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Basilisk II</span> Open-source 68k Macintosh emulator

Basilisk II is an emulator which emulates Apple Macintosh computers based on the Motorola 68000 series. The software is cross-platform and can be used on a variety of operating systems.

Martin Richards is a British computer scientist known for his development of the BCPL programming language which is both part of early research into portable software, and the ancestor of the B programming language invented by Ken Thompson in early versions of Unix and which Dennis Ritchie in turn used as the basis of his widely used C programming language.

In computing, preemption is the act of temporarily interrupting an executing task, with the intention of resuming it at a later time. This interrupt is done by an external scheduler with no assistance or cooperation from the task. This preemptive scheduler usually runs in the most privileged protection ring, meaning that interruption and then resumption are considered highly secure actions. Such changes to the currently executing task of a processor are known as context switching.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sage Computer Technology</span> American computer manufacturer

SAGE Computer Technology was a computer company based in Reno, Nevada, United States. It was founded in 1981 by Rod Coleman, Bill Bonham and Bob Needham; it went through several name changes. The change from Sage computer came about when "Sage Software" in Maryland demanded cessation of use of the name Sage in the computer segment.

AmigaOS is the proprietary native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. Since its introduction with the launch of the Amiga 1000 in 1985, there have been four major versions and several minor revisions of the operating system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AROS Research Operating System</span> Operating system

AROS Research Operating System is a free and open-source multi media centric implementation of the AmigaOS 3.1 application programming interface (API) which is designed to be portable and flexible. As of 2021, ports are available for personal computers (PCs) based on x86 and PowerPC, in native and hosted flavors, with other architectures in development. In a show of full circle development, AROS has been ported to the Motorola 68000 series (m68k) based Amiga 1200, and there is also an ARM port for the Raspberry Pi series.

FlexOS is a discontinued modular real-time multiuser multitasking operating system (RTOS) designed for computer-integrated manufacturing, laboratory, retail and financial markets. Developed by Digital Research's Flexible Automation Business Unit in Monterey, California, in 1985.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AmigaOS</span> Operating system for Amiga computers

AmigaOS is a family of proprietary native operating systems of the Amiga and AmigaOne personal computers. It was developed first by Commodore International and introduced with the launch of the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000, in 1985. Early versions of AmigaOS required the Motorola 68000 series of 16-bit and 32-bit microprocessors. Later versions, after Commodore's demise, were developed by Haage & Partner and then Hyperion Entertainment. A PowerPC microprocessor is required for the most recent release, AmigaOS 4.

References

  1. ↑ Moody, Glyn (July 1986). "Microbox III Graphics for the Specialist". Practical Computing. pp. 54–55. Retrieved 16 July 2024.
  2. ↑ "Introduction to Tripos". METACOMCO plc. May 1986. Retrieved 29 November 2022.

Further reading

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.