I’ve administered this OS, which for us was used to develop images on plates for printing. It ran atop ATT UNIX and had to be “defragged” every now and again to regain contiguous space back. This process involved backing up the system to 250MB QIC tapes (twice for two sets of tapes), wiping the disks and then restoring the data from tape. This was an all-weekend process and really sucked if a tape broke, but that’s why there were two sets and scotch tape can work in a pinch when the other tape is bad.
Yes. Same as Windows 3.1 running atop DOS. I would say it doesn’t truly qualify as an operating system because of its dependence on a parent OS. Perhaps it’s more of an operating environment.
It is so funny to hear about “critical” systems that run ancient OSes and I’ve supported my fair share of those environments. I did love AIX as well. Smitty (and F6) teaching me UNIX commands early in my career was a great help.
I’ve administered this OS, which for us was used to develop images on plates for printing. It ran atop ATT UNIX and had to be “defragged” every now and again to regain contiguous space back. This process involved backing up the system to 250MB QIC tapes (twice for two sets of tapes), wiping the disks and then restoring the data from tape. This was an all-weekend process and really sucked if a tape broke, but that’s why there were two sets and scotch tape can work in a pinch when the other tape is bad.
Wait, it’s an OS, but it runs on top of Unix?
Yes. Same as Windows 3.1 running atop DOS. I would say it doesn’t truly qualify as an operating system because of its dependence on a parent OS. Perhaps it’s more of an operating environment.
I worked for a company that still supports a critical healthcare system that runs on Rocket U2 on AIX which is an evolution of PICK.
It is so funny to hear about “critical” systems that run ancient OSes and I’ve supported my fair share of those environments. I did love AIX as well. Smitty (and F6) teaching me UNIX commands early in my career was a great help.
Was Rocket U2 still written in Pick Basic?
Sounds like a dream job! How long ago was this?
Veritably, a lifetime ago.
Although I can almost guarantee someone is still doing things that way even today.