GEORGE (operating system)

Not to be confused with GEORGE (autocode system).
"GEORGE 1", "GEORGE 2", "GEORGE 3", and "GEORGE 4" redirect here. For George I, see George I (disambiguation). For George II, see George II (disambiguation). For George III, see George III (disambiguation). For George IV, see George IV (disambiguation).

GEORGE
DeveloperInternational Computers and Tabulators
Written inAssembly language
Working stateHistoric
Source modelSource available to licensees.
Initial release1960s
Latest release8,67 / 1985; 39 years ago (1985)
Available inEnglish
PlatformsICT 1900 series of computers
Kernel typeMonolithic
Influenced byMultics
Default
user interface		CLI (teletype or block mode terminal)
LicenseProprietary commercial software

GEORGE was the name given to a series of operating systems released by International Computers and Tabulators (ICT) in the 1960s, for the ICT 1900 series of computers. These included GEORGE 1, GEORGE 2, GEORGE 3, and GEORGE 4.

Initially, the 1900 series machines, like the Ferranti-Packard 6000 on which they were based, ran a simple operating system known as Executive, which allowed the system operator to load and run programs from a Teletype Model 33 ASR based system console.

In December 1964, ICT set up an Operating Systems Branch to develop a new operating system for the 1906/7. The branch was initially staffed with people being released by the end of work on the OMP operating system for the Ferranti Orion. The initial design of the new system, named George after the head of the Basic Programming Division George E. Felton,[1] was based on ideas from the Orion and the spooling system of the Atlas computer.[2] In public it was claimed that George stood for GEneral ORGanisational Environment, but contemporary sources say that was a backronym.[3]

In July 1965, a team from ICT was present at a seminar at NPL describing the CTSS operating system developed for MIT's Project MAC. They decided that the ICT would need to provide multi-access facilities, known to ICT as MOP, "Multiple Online Processing". In November 1965 H. P. Goodman, head of the Operating Systems Branch attended the Fall Joint Computer Conference in Las Vegas where plans for Multics were initially described.[4] Some of the Multics features discussed influenced future development of George, notably the tree structured filestore.

Towards the end of 1965, ICT marketing requested that a simpler operating system be made available quickly, especially for the smaller members of the range. It was decided that two smaller systems, known as George 1 and George 2 be released rapidly, and the larger operating system was renamed George 3.

  1. ^ In "Another ICL Anthology" George Felton explains the origin of the name as follows:
    "About January 1965, there was a meeting in my office, while I was away abroad, discussing different ways of allotting functions between the proposed operating system and Executive. Scheme A was discussed and rejected. Scheme B ditto. And Schemes C, D, E and F were also discarded in quick succession. When Scheme G came up, everybody was happy, and it was decided to adopt it. The "GEneral ORGanisational Environment' was also quickly formulated as the official expansion of the acronym. But the name 'GEORGE' was in any case a natural choice: it had echoes of aircraft autopilots; it was a bit of fun; and I certainly wasn't going to object".
  2. ^ Goodman, H. P. (2004-01-01). "3.4.2- George Operating Systems for the ICL 1900 Series Computer Range". Archived from the original on 2011-06-28. Retrieved 2011-02-15.
  3. ^ Carmichael, Hamish (November 1998). Another ICL Anthology (PDF). Laidlaw Hicks. ISBN 978-0-9527389-2-3. Retrieved 2013-12-05.
  4. ^ "Multics Technical Papers online". Retrieved 2011-02-15.