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1994-04-24
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March 30, 1994
An Overview Of The OS/2 Operating System For PowerPC
Personal Computer Systems are continually evolving. The demands
placed on today's systems continue to grow as the technologies
we employ advance. Not only have the capabilities of, and
demands upon, these systems increased, so has the complexity of
these systems. Customers are demanding that system vendors
reduce the complexity of these systems, while continuing to keep
pace with the technology evolution.
To achieve this goal, IBM has been implementing Workplace, a set
of open standards and technologies that will reduce the
complexity, improve the usability, and enhance the portability
of applications and systems within today's complex computing
environments. These open standards deliver a common look and
feel to the user, common application programmer interfaces to
the developer, and a means for a wide variety of systems to
interoperate.
Workplace begins with the OS/2 operating system. OS/2 (for
Intel x86 based systems) is the premier client operating system
that IBM offers today. The OS/2 operating system offers:
An easy to use, productive user interface,
Broad application coverage (OS/2, DOS, and Windows),
Multiple connectivity options,
Excellent memory management features,
Crash protection via application isolation,
Industrial strength features such as multi-tasking,
multi-threading and 32-bit support, and
State-of-the-art extensions for multimedia, pen and speech.
Furthermore, the OS/2 operating system is gaining significant
momentum in the marketplace. This momentum is demonstrated by
the increased presence of the OS/2 operating system and OS/2
applications in retail stores, the winning of over two dozen
significant industry awards, the commitment of large customers
to rollout the OS/2 operating system and the overwhelmingly
positive press coverage.
OS/2 for the PowerPC, another Workplace operating system,
combines all of the benefits of OS/2 with the power of RISC
systems, in essence delivering the OS/2 operating system for
the PowerPC. The combination of the OS/2 operating system and
the PowerPC adds up to much more than just a faster OS/2 system.
This combination delivers to the user a human centered system,
a system that can interact with the user the way that people
interact with each other, rather than requiring that people
interact by system-oriented means.
The OS/2 operating system for the PowerPC includes the world
class human centered technologies, such as speech and
handwriting recognition as well as multimedia, that have been
available as options for OS/2 (for Intel). All PowerPC systems
will contain the basic hardware elements necessary for human
centered functions, without incurring any additional hardware
cost. By providing the necessary software capabilities to all
users, human centered computing is now available to the masses.
With all users being able to take advantage of these human
centered features, more and more software developers will be
incorporating human centered features into their applications.
The OS/2 operating system for the PowerPC has been designed
with the future in mind. It is built upon IBM's new
microkernel-based architecture (code name: Workplace OS) that
has been developed for the delivery of a wide range of specific
operating system products for different markets.
This architecture provides a modern operating system base that
is both modular and flexible. There are three major components
to this architecture:
The IBM Microkernel including Personality Neutral Services
Operating System Personalities
Common Personality Servers
The IBM Microkernel along with the personality neutral services
provides the hardware interface as well as the base operating
system services. The operating system personalities provide the
application execution environment along with the look and feel
of the user interface. Common Personality Servers provide
extended service support for databases, file systems, Local Area
Network, communications and more, in such a way that these
services can be shared fully or partially among different
operating system personalities. This architecture will allow
IBM, as well as others, to easily add new functions to OS/2 or
any other operating system personality over time. This
architecture benefits OS/2 in many ways. Several of the key
benefits include:
Portability - Applications written for OS/2 will be able to
run on new hardware platforms as they are developed.
Modularity - New function can be added to OS/2 in a modular
fashion. This means that customers can easily configure their
systems to provide the function they require without ending up
with a system that is large and cumbersome. In addition, this
means that IBM, as well as others, can make available new OS/2
function, without requiring a complete release of OS/2. This
means that more capability can be made available more rapidly,
as technology evolves, and at lower cost the customers.
Scalability - OS/2 customers want to see the OS/2 operating
system scale the range of hardware offerings from mobile to
advanced server systems, and even up to mini-computers and
mainframes.
Reusability - OS/2 application developers can take advantage
of the common service structure to maximize reuse of their
code base. Common personality servers are written once and
then used by all personalities on a system, rather than the
conventional approach of writing a server for each operating
system. In addition, these servers only need to be recompiled
for use on other hardware platforms supporting the IBM
microkernel.
One of the first benefits to be delivered as a result of this
architecture will be a clear migration path to objects. IBM
intends to make object technology available to all OS/2 and AIX
users through IBM/Taligent Application Frameworks layered on top
of the native operating system. These same frameworks continue
to be available with the OS/2 operating system for the PowerPC.
Over time, IBM plans to deliver a complete Taligent personality,
including not only the application frameworks, but also
including object oriented system services, resulting in complete
object technology exploitation. In addition, this Taligent
personality will be able to coexist with the OS/2 personality,
and others, allowing users to continue to run all their existing
applications.
Together the OS/2 operating system and the IBM Microkernel
based architecture set the stage for the future. The IBM
Microkernel architecture allows 32-bit OS/2 applications to
migrate to other hardware platforms as they are developed by IBM
and other hardware developers. This portability will build upon
OS/2's current momentum. Furthermore, the modularity of this
architecture reduces complexity and increases flexibility by
providing re-use and sharing of fundamental system tasks and the
ability to incorporate new technologies. The IBM Microkernel
based architecture delivers an integrating platform for many
operating systems and technologies, providing the system
unification necessary to meet the challenging customer
requirements of the future.