Data General AOS

Data General AOS (an abbreviation for Advanced Operating System[1]) was the name of a family of operating systems for Data General 16-bit Eclipse C, M, and S minicomputers, followed by AOS/VS and AOS/RT32[2] (1980) and later AOS/VS II (1988) for the 32-bit Eclipse MV line.

Data General AOS
DeveloperData General
Working stateDiscontinued
Source modelClosed-source
PlatformsData General 16-bit Eclipse C, M, and S minicomputers and 32-bit Eclipse MV line
Default user interfaceCommand-line interpreter
LicenseProprietary commercial software

Overview

AOS/VS exploited the 8-ring protection architecture of the Eclipse MV hardware with ring 7 being the least privileged and ring 0 being the most privileged. The AOS/VS kernel ran in ring 0 and used ring-1 addresses for data structures related to virtual address translations. Ring 2 was unused and reserved for future use by the kernel. The Agent, which performed much of the system call validation for the AOS/VS kernel, as well as some I/O buffering and many compatibility functions, ran in ring 3 of each process. Ring 4 was used by various D.G. products such as the INFOS II DBMS. Rings 5 and 6 were reserved for use by user programs but rarely used except for large software such as the MV/UX inner-ring emulator and Oracle which used ring 5. All user programs ran in ring 7.

The AOS software was far more advanced than competing PDP-11 operating systems. 16-bit AOS applications ran natively under AOS/VS and AOS/VS II on the 32-bit Eclipse MV line. AOS/VS (Advanced Operating System/Virtual Storage) was the most commonly used DG software product, and included a command-line interpreter (CLI) allowing for complex scripting, DUMP/LOAD, and other custom components.

The 16-bit version of the CLI is famous for including an Easter egg taken directly from the Colossal Cave Adventure game. A user typing in the command "xyzzy" would get back a response from the CLI of "Nothing Happens". When a 32-bit version of the CLI became available under AOS/VS II, the same command instead reported "Twice As Much Happens".

A modified version of System V.2 Unix called MV/UX hosted under AOS/VS was also available. A modified version of System V Unix called DG/UX was made for the Eclipse MV line and later the 88K and x86 AViiON machines.

The AOS and AOS/VS kernels were written entirely in assembly language. Almost all of the AOS and AOS/VS utilities included in the operating system releases were written in variants of the PL/I programming language. Initially, AOS/VS utilities closely tracked AOS source development. As AOS/VS matured, many DG-supplied utilities were rewritten to take advantage of the 32-bit address space and reduce dependencies on assembly language, often resulting in substantial increases in functionality, performance and reliability compared with their AOS ancestors.

Session

**** Atari S/W Development HCD1 / BATCH OUTPUT FILE ****

AOS/VS  3.07 / EXEC  3.07	19-JAN-84	10:11:01	
QPRI=254	SEQ=31324
INPUT FILE -- :UDD:SYSTEMS:850:?031.CLI.004.JOB (WILL BE DELETED AFTER PROCESSING)
LIST FILE  -- :QUEUE:NORDIN.LIST.31324

--------
LAST MESSAGE CHANGE	12-JAN-84	16:06:08

		Atari S/W Development System HCD1

Backup schedule (system shut down): Saturday  21-Jan-84  9:30-11:30am

Refer to HELP *COMMANDS, HELP *PSEUDO, HELP, APHELP, and ?MHELP.

Refer to DISP FUNC in SED for list of default function key commands.

--------
LAST PREVIOUS LOGON	19-JAN-84	10:09:45
* searchlist :UDD:NORDIN:UTIL :UDD:NORDIN:LINKS :C :UTIL :

AOS/VS CLI   REV 03.03.00.00	19-JAN-84	10:11:05
Ý SEARCHLIST :UDD:SYSTEMS:UTIL,:UDD:NORDIN:UTIL,:UDD:NORDIN:LINKS,:C,:UTIL,:
Ý DIRECTORY :UDD:SYSTEMS:850
Ý DEFACL SYSTEMS,OWARE,A.JOE,OWARE,A.OLIVIA,OWARE,ARKEN,OWARE,BLOTCKY,OWARE,NORDIN,OWARE,TITTSLER,OWARE,FOWKES,OWARE
Ý CAMAC R850AMAC H=R850AMAC.OBJ L=R850AMAC.PRN R=F SL=132 


ATARI CAMAC Assembler Ver  1.0A
Copyright 1981 ATARI Inc.

Enter source file name and options

d:R850AMAC  h=d:R850AMAC.OBJ l=d:R850AMAC.PRN R=F SL=132           

  Pass 1 - Reading D1:R850AMAC.   
  Pass 2 - Reading D1:R850AMAC.   

  no ERRORs,  669 Labels, $67E8 free.
�

ATARI CAMAC Assembler Ver  1.0A
Copyright 1981 ATARI Inc.

Enter source file name and options



Ý 
Ý 
END OF FILE
AOS/VS CLI   TERMINATING	19-JAN-84	10:12:06

PROCESS 42 TERMINATED 
ELAPSED TIME  0:01:06
(OTHER JOBS, SAME USERNAME)
USER 'NORDIN' LOGGED OFF 	19-JAN-84	10:12:07


****
* LIST FILE EMPTY, WILL NOT BE PRINTED
****

See also

References

  1. https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_dgsoftwarebraryFileEditorUMApr77raw_1324483
  2. Hoard, Bruce (22 November 1982). "Computerworld Nov 22, 1982". Computerworld. IDG. Retrieved 2011-09-28.
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