Ross A. Faneuf
ABSTRACT
The National Software Works (NSW) inaugurates a new class of operating systems—that of network interactive systems. Its operational properties differ in significant ways from those of current interactive systems, and consequently the rules of behavior NSW enforces on its users differ as well. Three factors condition the expectations, habitual behavior, and consequent productivity of most users of interactive systems: the basic properties of the system itself (i.e., the system's virtual machine, what the operating systems designer thinks of as “the system” and to which he devotes most of his attention); the means by which the user accesses the system(e.g. Arpanet as opposed to hard-wired in-house access); and the set of “least-adequate” software tools which represent obstacles to software development.
NSW exists in large part to help solve the latter problem by granting access to existing high-quality software tools irrespective of their distribution over diverse host operating systems. The benefits to be gained are described in [1,2,3]. Here we are chiefly interested in NSW's behavior as seen at the user's terminal, and how that behavior will affect the user's expectations and habitual ways of using the system. For this purpose, an interactive system may be characterized by a “virtual machine” which is the sum of its system characteristics and the user's access mode.
- 1.Geller, D.P. The National Software Works. Massachusetts Computer Associates, Inc., CA-7708-1111, August 11, 1977.Google Scholar
- 2.Rasmussen, N.L. Software Configuration Management Using Operation System Primitives of the National Software Works. Gagliardi Systems Group (GSG), to appear in the Fall proceedings of COMPCON '77 to be held in Washington, D.C. in September 1977.Google Scholar
- 3.Millstein, R.E. The National Software Works: A Distributed Processing System. Massachusetts Computer Associates, Inc., CA-7708-0911, August 9, 1977.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- The National Software Works: Operational issues in a distributed processing system
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