COMPATIBLE TIME-SHARING SYSTEM (CTSS)

July 14, 2019

Fernando Corbató, whose work on Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) in the 1960s helped pave the way for the personal computer, as well as the computer password, died at the age of 93.

About: 

  • Meaning: Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) allowed multiple users in different locations to access a single computer simultaneously through telephone lines.

  • Compatible means that it could simulate the Fortran Monitor System, the batch OS previously run on the IBM 7090 and IBM 7094 mainframe computers on which CTSS ran.

  • Time sharing means the system can allocate resources for two tasks or processes at once. This was a major advance, since earlier mainframes and computer systems only worked on one process at a time, in a linear fashion.

  • Development: The Compatible Time Sharing System (CTSS) was developed at the MIT Computation Center in the 1960s and 1970s.

  • Impact:
    • The design of the CTSS represents the beginning of the idea that operating systems can work on multiple threads or “multitask.”

    • Eventually, designs like CTSS gave way to more modern MS-DOS systems in the 1980s and on to modern Windows and OSx systems in use today.



Source : The Hindu

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