Control Data Corporation
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|---|---|---|---|
| Computers |
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| Software | |||
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Time-sharing operating systems
| Developer | Control Data Corporation |
|---|---|
| Working state | Historic |
| Initial release | 1980s |
| Marketing target | Mainframe computers |
| Platforms | CDC Cyber 180 series and successors |
| License | Proprietary |
NOS/VE (Network Operating System / Virtual Environment) is a discontinued operating system with time-sharing capabilities, written by Control Data Corporation in the 1980s. It is a virtual memory operating system, employing the 64-bit virtual mode of the CDC Cyber 180 series computers. NOS/VE replaced the earlier NOS and NOS/BE operating systems of the 1970s.
The command shell interface for NOS/VE is called the System Command Language, or SCL for short. In order to be callable from SCL, command programs must declare their parameters; this permits automatic usage summaries, passing of parameters by name or by position, and type checking on the parameter values. All standard NOS/VE commands further follow a particular naming convention, where the form of the command is verb{_adjective}_noun; these commands could be abbreviated with the first three characters of the verb followed by the first character(s) of all further words. Examples:
| Full command | Abbreviation | UNIX command |
|---|---|---|
| display_catalog | disc | ls |
| display_working_catalog | diswc | pwd |
| change_working_catalog | chawc | cd |
| delete_catalog | delc | rmdir |
| copy_file | copf | cp |
| delete_file | delf | rm |
| create_connection | crec | telnet |
Inspired by addressing structure-members in various programming languages, the catalog separator is the dot.
Subsystems like FTP integrate into the command shell. They change the prompt and add commands like get_file. Thereby statements like flow-control stay the same and subsystems can be mixed in procedures (scripts).
Commands could take parameters such as the create_connection command:
crec telnet sd='10.1.2.3'
would connect you to IP address 10.1.2.3 with telnet service.
