ken@gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) (03/24/89)
Could someone point me to references concerning the design of CDCs NOS/VE operating system. Many thanks... ...ken seefried iii ken@gatech.edu
jps@wucs1.wustl.edu (James Sterbenz) (03/29/89)
In article <6768@saturn.ucsc.edu> ken@gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) writes: > >Could someone point me to references concerning the design of CDCs >NOS/VE operating system. > >Many thanks... > > ...ken seefried iii > ken@gatech.edu Hopefully someone from CDC can give you better pointers, but here goes... As far as I know, precious little has been written in the standard literature about NOS/VE. The only article I've ever seen was in one of the trade rags (Computer Design?). I don't have the reference with me, but I'll try to find it. My information comes from CDC pubs. Most of what I have is fairly old, maybe more is out (if so, I'd like to hear about it!). A marketing brocure thats actually better than most, and gives some details is "System Architecture: Cyber 180 Systems", 204 137, 1984. I got this (along with other glossy but non-technical stuff) from a CDC sales office. The NOS/VE software manuals that I have don't help much: commands, etc. If there is an internals manual I'd like to hear about it! Most of what I know I've gotten from the hardware manuals; for some information, such as virtual memory management, they are useful. Try looking at: "CDC Cyber 170 and Cyber 180 Volume I: Virtual State System Description, Functional Description", 60462090, 1984, and "CDC Cyber 170 and Cyber 180 Volume II: Instruction Descriptions, Programming Information", 60458890, 1984. It's a shame not more is easily accessable on NOS/VE. From what I can tell its a very nice design, and a very clever solution to providing modern OS facilities, while still retaining compatability to an ancient predecessor (NOS). It also keeps the Multics style of addressing and memory management alive, since Honeywell has dumped it. (flame on: I don't know to what extent modern GCOS does this, but getting any useful information out of Honeywell is next to impossible. I've NEVER delt with anyone that either knew or cared anything about spreading info about Multics, GCOS, or DPS machines. CDC, on the other hand can be very helpful, they just don't seem to conisder it important to publicise their systems. You've got to ask. flame off) I consider NOS/VE and Multics to be among the essential systems to look at when I teach operating systems (along with MVS and MCP), but I've never seen anything about it in textbook case studies either. -- James Sterbenz Computer and Communications Research Center Washington University in St. Louis 314-726-4203 INTERNET: jps@wucs1.wustl.edu UUCP: wucs1!jps@uunet.uu.net
pal@uunet.UU.NET (04/07/89)
In article <6792@saturn.ucsc.edu> jps@wucs1.wustl.edu (James Sterbenz) writes: > >In article <6768@saturn.ucsc.edu> ken@gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) writes: >> >>Could someone point me to references concerning the design of CDCs >>NOS/VE operating system. [deleted] >Most of what I know I've gotten from the hardware manuals; for some >information, such as virtual memory management, they are useful. >Try looking at: >"CDC Cyber 170 and Cyber 180 Volume I: Virtual State System Description, >Functional Description", 60462090, 1984, >and >"CDC Cyber 170 and Cyber 180 Volume II: Instruction Descriptions, Programming >Information", 60458890, 1984. Another manual that describes NOS/VE is: CDC Cyber 170 and Cyber 180: General Description (Hardware Maintenance Manual) no. 60459960, 1985. The preface states that "this manual provides a model-independent overview of the Virtual State System and its security/protection and interrupt features relative to the computer system's hardware." Actually in the version I have (revision B) the first section (virtual state overview) and the last section (virtual state software overview) are omitted. Other sections are called "security and protection", "buffer memories", "central processor logical environment", "interrupts", "call/return/pop mechanism", "crossing protection boundaries", "interrupts part II", and "debug". This manual, being an overview, also has the advantage that it's short in length, unlike some other manuals such as the FORTRAN ones and the CDCNET shelf :-) Phil Leverton Systems Group, University Computing Services, University of Melbourne.