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ISIS
DeveloperIntel
Written inAssembler, PL/M
Working stateHistoric
Source modelClosed source
Initial release1975
Marketing targetexclusively for Intel Microprocessor Development System
PlatformsIntel 8080, Intel 8085
LicenseProprietary
Succeeded byISIS II
Official websiteisis-mds.com (Archive)
Support status
Obsolete

ISIS, short for Intel System Implementation Supervisor, is an operating system for early Intel microprocessors like the 8080. It was originally developed by Ken Burgett and Jim Stein under the management of Steve Hanna and Terry Opdendyk for the Intel Microprocessor Development System with two 8" floppy drives, starting in 1975,[1][2][3][4][5] and later adopted as ISIS-II as the operating system for the PL/M compiler, assembler, link editor, and In-Circuit Emulator (developed by Steve Morse). The ISIS operating system was developed on an early prototype of the MDS 800 computer, the same type of hardware that Gary Kildall used to develop CP/M.[5]

Overview

An Intel MDS system in the UK in April 1987.

Communication with the user is terminal-like. Its user interface is somewhat CP/M-like, even from the program interface point of view. For file opening, the program sends the name of file and gets back a handle. Each device has a name, which is entered between a pair of colons (:F0: and :F1: are floppies, :LP: is printer, etc.). Each diskette has one directory and no subdirectories. ISIS-II has been distributed as part of the Intel Microprocessor Development System and includes standard operating system commands (COPY, DELETE, DIR, RENAME, FORMAT)[3] and debugging software (assembler, linker and debugger for external debugging in the developed device). There are two editors, one of which, AEDIT, contains editing macros support. File editing is provided directly on diskette (a .BAK file is always created). The other editor is CREDIT.

ISIS-II needed at least 32 kilobytes of RAM, the 8080/8085 CPU maximum address space was 64 kilobytes. In the MDS-800 and Series-II, the Monitor occupied F800h to FFFFh. Floppy disk format was 8-inch single-sided, 250 KB single-sided, single-density FM, or 500 KB single-sided, double-density MMFM. ISIS-PDS was also software and media incompatible and unique, it came on 720 KB double-sided double-density (DSDD) 5¼-inch floppies with the Intel personal development system (iPDS-100).

The ISIS-IV operating system was another incompatible (even with other Intel development systems) that ran on the iMDX-430 Series-IV Network Development System-II.

Intel ASM80, PLM-80, BASIC-80, COBOL-80, FORTRAN-80 were all available for ISIS-II. ASM86, ASM48, ASM51 were available as well.

Commands

The following list of commands are supported by the ISIS-II console.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ Shustek, Len (2016-08-02). "In His Own Words: Gary Kildall". Remarkable People. Computer History Museum.
  2. ^ Kildall, Gary Arlen (2016-08-02) [1993]. Kildall, Scott; Kildall, Kristin (eds.). Computer Connections: People, Places, and Events in the Evolution of the Personal Computer Industry (Manuscript, part 1). Kildall Family. Retrieved 2016-11-17.
  3. ^ a b "ISIS, Intellec, PL/M and Intel".
  4. ^ Burgett, Kenneth "Ken" (2017). Arrick, Roger (ed.). "Chat". Archived from the original on 2023-11-24. Retrieved 2023-11-25.
  5. ^ a b Burgett, Kenneth "Ken" (2017-11-10). "Development of Intel ISIS Operating System - An interview with Ken Burgett". Archived from the original on 2023-11-24. Retrieved 2023-11-25. [1][2]
  6. ^ ISIS II User's Guide (PDF). Santa Clara, California, USA: Intel Corporation. May 1981 [1976]. Order Number 9800306-06. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2023-11-25. Retrieved 2023-11-25.

Further reading

External links

Disk operating systems (DOS)
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