PICK OS - I know it well...

From: Jay West <jlwest_at_tseinc.com>
Date: Sun Apr 11 14:07:50 1999

My company has specialized in the Pick OS for about 17 years. Matter of
fact, I spent a lot of time writing some portions of the operating system
for several of the implementing manufacturers as an independent consultant.
The "virtual" assembler on Pick is truely unique - the entire instruction
set is geared for byte oriented string searches on delimiters, etc. Very
bizzare, but I loved the assembler on it.

In addition, due to the way the virtual assembler was implemented, porting
the Pick OS to a different hardware platform was childsplay, and typically
took about a week at most.

Yes, I have the PC version, as well as full source code to Reality 2.5D (a
Microdata -> McDonnel Douglas implementation on the M1600 systems). I'm sure
I have OS load tapes for many of the other platforms too (LSI11, Honeywell
DPS6 [those two weren't really called pick, they were called Ultimate OS,
but it WAS pick], General Automation, Prime [called INFORMATION on that
platform], ADDS [mentor OS], Universe [a variant of pick that runs on top of
Unix], Revelation [a variant running on DOS], there are MANY others).

Contrary to what others have mentioned, it virtually NEVER had built in
networking. Picks strong suit was database management and multiuser
handling, it's weak point was communications and networking - it REALLY
stunk at those last two. Ah - but it's database manager was the greatest
thing around for business data management. Also, it was VERY extensible -
the only problem was that any extensions had to be written in assembler. The
virtual assembler on pick was largely undocumented and something of a black
art.

The PC version was not a toy - I had a small hand in it as well. The virtual
code was 100% identical to the pick OS code used on many of the mainframe
versions - the only difference was the machine dependent monitor code which
implemented the missionary instructions. Other than that difference (which
isn't visible to the user or programmer) it was identical to the other "r83"
type implementations.

I had no idea there was pick interest here. If someone wants a small writeup
of the OS architecture and progression through history, I'd be happy to
resurrect those brain cells :)

Jay West

-----Original Message-----
From: Max Eskin <max82_at_surfree.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, April 10, 1999 5:07 PM
Subject: PICK OS


>I saw an interesting book at the library today about something called PICK
>OS. I didn't get to look through the entire book, but I read enough to see
>that it refers to directories as dictionaries. It seems to take a novel
>approach, but I know nothing about it. Haven't even heard of it. Does
>anyone here know more? Does anyone here have the PC version (mentioned in
>the book)?
>
>--Max Eskin (max82_at_surfree.com)
>
>
Received on Sun Apr 11 1999 - 14:07:50 BST