Ésope ("Aesop") is a discontinued experimental

time-sharing In computing, time-sharing is the Concurrency (computer science), concurrent sharing of a computing resource among many tasks or users by giving each Process (computing), task or User (computing), user a small slice of CPU time, processing time. ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

for the

Scientific Data Systems Scientific Data Systems (SDS), was an American computer company founded in September 1961 by Max Palevsky, Arthur Rock and Robert Beck, veterans of Packard Bell Corporation and Bendix, along with eleven other computer scientists. SDS was the f ...

Sigma 7 and its French clone, the CII 10070. Ésope was a project of the

French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation The National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria) () is a French national research institution focusing on computer science and applied mathematics. It was created under the name French Institute for Research in Comp ...

(IRIA) aimed at using virtual memory and resource sharing to enable simultaneous access to computers from 1968 until 1974, at a time when the shortage of computing power in France was being addressed by

Plan Calcul Plan Calcul was a French governmental program to promote a national or European computer industry and associated research and education activities. History The plan was approved in July 1966 by President Charles de Gaulle, in the aftermath of two ...

. Henri Boucher, a general engineer of the French Armaments Department, who oversaw the army's computer control systems during the 1960s, named the project ("Simultaneous Operation of a Computer and its Peripherals - ÉSOPE") and recruited two Navy engineers for it: Sacha Krakowiak in May 1968,Article dans ''Code source'', revue scientifique de l'

IRIA , stylized as ''I・Я・I・A ZЁIЯAM THE ANIMATION'', is a six-episode original video animation (OVA) anime series produced by Ashi Productions and directed by Tetsurō Amino. The series serves as a prequel to the original live-action film ...

/ref> then Claude Kaiser in 1969, part-time.Parcours de Claude Kaiser
/ref> These were later joined by other Navy engineers, serving in one of the six autonomous "research departments" created at IRIA, called ("Structure and Programming of Computers"). The program suffered departures in 1972,D'Ésope à Sirac, de Paris à Grenoble - Entretien avec Sacha Krakowiak
/ref> when the CII and IRIA preferred the competing project ''SAM'', and was then discontinued in 1974. Meanwhile, in 1971, Henri Boucher "was eliminated"Inventaire publié en 2011 sur le site de l'association Association pour un conservatoire de l'informatique et de la télématique, Aconit par Henri Boucher, ingénieur général de l'armement, membre du service Technique des constructions navales pour la

Marine nationale The French Navy (, , ), informally (, ), is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the four military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in the world recognised as being a blu ...

, qui l'a détaché en 1967 comme directeur d'études à l'

br>
/ref> from IRIA, according to him after "episodes that are best left undescribed, given the processes employed." This was also the case for some of its researchers who found themselves at the Navy Programming Center at the time when "a new theme is introduced", which Henri Boucher "refused" to take charge of, for the study of the French

CYCLADES The CYCLADES computer network () was a French research network created in the early 1970s. It was one of the pioneering networks experimenting with the concept of packet switching and, unlike the ARPANET, was explicitly designed to facilitate i ...

packet switching network, entrusted to

Louis Pouzin Louis Pouzin (born 20 April 1931) is a French computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He directed the development of the CYCLADES computer network in France the early 1970s, which implemented a novel design for packet communication. He was the ...

at the same time, a period which also saw the entry into the board of directors of the young mathematician

Alain Bensoussan Alain Bensoussan (born 12 May 1940) is a French mathematician. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Paris-Dauphine and Professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. Early life and education Alain Bensoussan was born on 12 May 1940 ...

, researcher on

Multics Multics ("MULTiplexed Information and Computing Service") is an influential early time-sharing operating system based on the concept of a single-level memory.Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System", Communications of t ...

systems, and "piloted from afar" by Lions. Before Henri Boucher's departure, the IRIA Computing Centre was "obviously equipped with CII equipment", such as the Iris 50, with its successor, the Iris 80, only arriving afterwards.

References

{{Reflist 1968 introductions 1974 disestablishments Time-sharing operating systems Discontinued operating systems