25 Apr
2006
25 Apr
'06
6:13 a.m.
If I recall DOS was the single user OS they picked up
from the
government (MIT & NASA?). The multi-user version of it was Primos
III for the Prime 300, and then Primos IV was the breakthru with
big virtual memory space and a lot of other advanced (for then)
and Multics derived features.
The story is supposedly that DOS, later called Primos II, was written
over a Memorial Day weekend in 1968 by Bill Poduska because they
were tired of rewinding the FORTRAN compiler paper tapes. He figured
they'd never finish developing a timesharing OS if they had to keep
doing that.
The FORTRAN compiler was inherited from a contractor who wrote it
for NASA. A lot of software was written on government contract,
or inherited from same, so the software ended up being public domain.
De