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RTOS

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Dennis Boone

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Nov 12, 2010, 10:49:11 PM11/12/10
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I recently discovered the concept of Prime's RTOS. Anyone know when
they quit shipping it? Or why?

De

matt weber

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Nov 13, 2010, 2:05:06 PM11/13/10
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The Prime product couldn't compete with the 'real' real time
players, like Perkin-Elmer/Interdata, Gould/Encore, Systems
Engineering Laboratories (SEL) etc. These guys built much faster
'engines', and did real-time for a living. Prime only did well in
markets where they didn't have a lot of competent competitors.

RTOS and Prime never got anywhere near 'critical' mass in the real
time market. They moved on to bigger and hopefully more profitable
markets.


Andrew

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Nov 14, 2010, 11:56:54 AM11/14/10
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On Nov 13, 7:05 pm, matt weber <matthew...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Nov 2010 21:49:11 -0600, d...@ihatespam.msu.edu (Dennis
> >I recently discovered the concept of Prime's RTOS.  Anyone know when
> >they quit shipping it?  Or why?
>
> >De
> RTOS and Prime never got anywhere near 'critical' mass in the real
> time market. They moved on to bigger and hopefully more profitable
> markets.

I never heard of this. What time was this, especially compared to
their attempts at Unix (Primix)?

-Andrew M.

Dennis Boone

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Nov 14, 2010, 2:08:41 PM11/14/10
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> I never heard of this. What time was this, especially compared to
> their attempts at Unix (Primix)?

The documentation and marketing material I've seen from Bitsavers and
CHM is contemporaneous with the P200-P300. Primix was later, but I've
never had a clear date for it. The UNH unix port was announced at
NPUG in '81, iirc.

De

Dennis Boone

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Oct 30, 2011, 6:44:41 PM10/30/11
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> I recently discovered the concept of Prime's RTOS. Anyone know when
> they quit shipping it? Or why?

If I can be forgiven for answering myself, I found the following
in an old c.s.p. post. The author was John Bush of PrimeService,
who posted it in 8/92.

De

> Are you thinking of RTS ? (my mnemonic might not be correct)
>
> This was a "Real Time" operating system that got dumped in 1978.
> It only ran on P-100's and P-200's. (and I don't mean terminals).
>
> This may have been the first product cancellation in Prime's history.
>
> It was this system that first supported the SOC & GPIB boards. Now,
> THERE'S an interface for you ... Talk about programming in OCTAL !!!
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