Talk:General Comprehensive Operating System/Archives/2014

Operating System or Supervisor?

The GE 635 programming reference and the Honeywell GCOS manual for GCOS-III say "Supervisor". Can anyone cite a trustworthy source for the "S" in GCOS standing for "System"? Odam 07:55, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

If memory serves me it's actually General Comprehensive Operative Supervisor - I have some GCOS 6 Mod 400 (Level 6/DPS 6/DPS 6000) manuals somewhere and I'll see if I can find the full wording. Ian Dunster 18:13, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I've had a look and AFAIKS nowhere does any of them give the full wording! - I did have a "GCOS 6 Mod 400 Programmmer's Pocket Guide" somewhere that I think DID give the full name but that's disappeared. Ian Dunster 09:44, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

History

The original 600 series systems were intended to compete with and replace IBM 7090 series systems which were also 36-bit systems. The GE 600 series systems employed a Base Address Register that allowed the OS to segment memory dynamically providing both efficiency and program isolation.

The GE 625 and 635 had block relocation. The term segment in this context should not be confused with a segmented virtual memory, where a single process has multiple segments and a virtual address contains either segment/offset or segment/page/offset designators. The version of GCOS that supported rings was for a more recent processor. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:36, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Split into multiple articles?

Maybe it would be a good idea to split GCOS 7 and GCOS 8 into separate articles. All the IBM and Unisys mainframe systems have their own articles, and GCOS 7 and 8 are totally distinct systems (GCOS 7 has a Multics heritage, GCOS 8 is derived from the original GECOS.) It might also be a good idea to split out a Novascale article, covering both mainframe and commodity Novascale systems.

On another note, ACOS (a GCOS derivative) really needs its own article. Kiralexis (talk) 20:14, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

GCOS6/TPS6

Should we capture some detail about the mini range? TPS6 was notable as one of the first transaction systems, and for its own language, Screenwrite. Campingcar (talk) 19:37, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Sounds like it shoild have its own article. Peter Flass (talk) 21:48, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

The information doesn't belong here. Are you willing to write separate articles on TPS6 and the underlying hardware? IMHO they would be welcome. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:54, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

After a bit of research I see the hardware for GCOS 6 was a mini (16 or 18 bits?), so it was obviously a different beastie from GCOS 7/8. It would be nice to sort all this out. How similar was GCOS 6 to the others? Peter Flass (talk) 16:11, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

For what it's worth I created a tiny stub Honeywell Level 6 about the Level 6 and DPS 6, obviously to be filled in later, but I would suggest this as a place for anything you want to write about TPS 6. Peter Flass (talk) 15:02, 18 July 2014 (UTC)