Apple SOS
| Apple SOS | |
|---|---|
| developer | Apple Computer Inc. |
| License (s) | Proprietary |
| First publ. | October 1980 |
| Current version | 1.3 (November 1982) |
| Architecture (s) | Apple III |
| Languages) | English |
Apple SOS was the operating system of the Apple III, launched by Apple Computer in 1980, and thus the successor to the Apple DOS running Apple II . It was designed for professional users.
The abbreviation SOS refers to the internal working title of the Apple III project, "Sara", after the daughter of the chief developer Wendell Sander. At launch SOS was then officially Backronym of S ophisticated O perating S ystem ( "Sophisticated Operating System") reinterpreted. “SOS” was pronounced like a word (sauce) , not like the name of the emergency signal SOS .
construction
SOS was operated with the Apple III System Utilities , which consisted of the Device Handling Commands Section , the File Handling Commands Section and the System Configuration Program (SCP) . An innovation from SOS were device drivers , with which not only 5¼-inch floppy disks but also hard disks and RAM disks could be used.
A program diskette consisted of a kernel SOS.kernel , an interpreter SOS.Interp , which could be an interpreter ( BASIC , Pascal or COBOL ) or the application itself, and a set of SOS.Driver drivers .
meaning
SOS was extremely progressive for its time: It offered, for example, a very flexible configuration and a hierarchical file system and thus also influenced later Apple products. This is how the HFS of the later Macintosh emerged from the SOS file system. The design of the operating system itself also had an impact on its successor, Apple ProDOS .
Despite all the advantages, the combination of Apple III and SOS was not a success: Almost all programs at that time ran under Apple DOS 3.2 or 3.3 and were not natively supported by SOS; Apple DOS programs could only be executed if the Apple III was also booted with Apple DOS. In addition, many users could not cope with the high flexibility and many capabilities of the system. Since the Apple III had a bad reputation overall and was expensive, Apple SOS also failed with it.
See also
literature
- Apple III Owner's Guide (PDF, 4.7 MB) Apple Computer, Inc. . 1982. Retrieved September 13, 2011.
- Apple SOS III Reference Manual, Volume 1: How SOS Works (PDF) Apple Computer, Inc. . 1982. Retrieved September 13, 2011.
- Apple SOS III Reference Manual, Volume 2: The SOS calls (PDF) Apple Computer, Inc. . 1982. Retrieved September 13, 2011.
- Apple /// SOS Operating System Source Code Listing