Commercial Operating System (COS)

COS-3xx (Commercial Operating System) was the name used by Digital Equipment Corporation for a family of operating systems. [1]

Commercial Operating System (COS)
DeveloperDigital Equipment Corporation
Available inEnglish
PlatformsPDP-8, PDP-11
LicenseProprietary

They supported the use of DIBOL, a programming language combining features of BASIC, FORTRAN and COBOL.[2] COS also supported RPG (Report Program Generator)[3]

Implementations

The Commercial Operating System was implemented to run on hardware from the PDP-8[4]:pp.2–19 thru 2–20 & PDP-11 family.

COS-310

COS-310 was developed for the PDP-8 to provide an operating environment for DIBOL. A COS-310 system was purchased as a package which included a desk, VT-52 VDT (Video Display Tube), and a pair of eight inch floppy drives. Optionally you could purchase one or more 2.5 MB hard drives that had removable media. COS-310 was one of the operating systems available on the DECmate II.[5][6]

Unlike under TSS-8, where each user had only a 4K virtual machine, on COS, each user had (up to) a virtual 32K.[7]

COS-350

COS-350 was developed to support the PDP-11 Port of DIBOL, and was the focus for some vendors of turnkey software packages.[8]

Pre-COS-350, a PDP 11/05 single-user batch-oriented implementation was released; the multi-user PDP 11/10-based COS came about 4 years later.[3] The much more powerful PDP-11/34 "added significant configuration flexibility and expansion capability.":p.69

gollark: Plus I plan to use the spatial IO frame to include useful stuff like a garden.
gollark: Er, if you count the water in that tank, there is one.
gollark: Compact machine with integrated spatial IO frame.
gollark: Fun.
gollark: Belts above yellow are like cheating.

References
  1. Binh Nguyen. Linux Dictionary. p. 424., citing "QUECID".
  2. "Dibol Under COS: The series operates under the Commercial Operating System (COS) 350, which provides timesharing with a high-speed response." "DIBOL under COS". Computerworld. July 30, 1975.
  3. DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION - Nineteen Fifty-Seven To The Present (PDF). Digital Equipment Corporation. 1975.
  4. in PDP 8/e Small Computer Handbook. Digital Equipment Corporation. 1973.
  5. the other was WPS-8.
  6. There was a product named COS-300, and some DEC manuals are named with both 300 & 310.
  7. "Multiple users of a Digital Equipment Corp. PDP-8 can each have a virtual machine with 32K words of memory running under.. COS-300.. "COS-300". Computerworld. August 15, 1977.
  8. "Datasystem 350 Turnkey Payroll Package". Computerworld. July 30, 1975.
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