ISIS, short for Intel System Implementation Supervisor, was an

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 early

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...

s like the

8080 The Intel 8080 is Intel's second 8-bit microprocessor. Introduced in April 1974, the 8080 was an enhanced successor to the earlier Intel 8008 microprocessor, although without binary compatibility.'' Electronic News'' was a weekly trade newspa ...

. It was originally developed by Ken Burgett and Jim Stein under the management of Steve Hanna and Terry Opdendyk for the Intel Microprocessor Development System with two 8" floppy drives, starting in 1975, and later adopted as ISIS-II as the operating system for the

PL/M PL/M, an acronym for ''Programming Language for Microcomputers'', is a high-level language conceived and developed by Gary Kildall in 1973 for Hank Smith at Intel for the Intel 8008. It was later expanded for the newer Intel 8080. The 8080 had ...

compiler, assembler, link editor, and In-Circuit Emulator (developed by Steve Morse). The ISIS operating system was developed on an early prototype of the MDS 800 computer, the same type of hardware that

Gary Kildall Gary Arlen Kildall (; May 19, 1942 – July 11, 1994) was an American computer scientist and microcomputer entrepreneur. During the 1970s, Kildall created the CP/M operating system among other operating systems and programming tools, and s ...

used to develop

CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/Intel 8085, 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Dig ...

Overview

Communication with the user is

terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output devices for a computer * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together ** Battery terminal, electrical contact used to ...

-like. Its user interface is somewhat

-like, even from the program interface point of view. For file opening, the program sends the name of file and gets back a handle. Each device has a name, which is entered between a pair of colons (:F0: and :F1: are floppies, :LP: is printer, etc.). Each diskette has one directory and no subdirectories. ISIS-II has been distributed as part of the Intel Microprocessor Development System and includes standard operating system commands (COPY, DELETE, DIR, RENAME, FORMAT) and debugging software (assembler, linker and debugger for external debugging in the developed device). There are two editors, one of which, AEDIT, contains editing macros support. File editing is provided directly on diskette (a .BAK file is always created). The other editor is CREDIT. ISIS-II needed at least 32 kilobytes of

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

, the

/ 8085 CPU maximum

address space In computing, an address space defines a range of discrete addresses, each of which may correspond to a network host, peripheral device, disk sector, a memory cell or other logical or physical entity. For software programs to save and retrieve ...

was 64 kilobytes. In the MDS-800 and Series-II, the Monitor occupied F800h to FFFFh.

Floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a ...

format was 8-inch single-sided, 250 KB single-sided, single-density FM, or 500 KB single-sided, double-density MMFM. ISIS-PDS was also software and media incompatible and unique, it came on 720 KB double-sided double-density (DSDD) 5¼-inch floppies with the Intel personal development system (iPDS-100). The ISIS-IV operating system was another incompatible (even with other Intel development systems) that ran on the iMDX-430 Series-IV Network Development System-II. Intel ASM80, PLM-80, BASIC-80, COBOL-80, FORTRAN-80 were all available for ISIS-II. ASM86, ASM48, ASM51 were available as well.

Commands

The following list of commands are supported by the ISIS-II console. * IDISK *

FORMAT Format may refer to: Printing and visual media * Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements * Paper formats, or paper size standards * Newspaper format, the size of the paper page Computing * File format, particular way that informatio ...

OBJHEX Intel hexadecimal object file format, Intel hex format or Intellec Hex is a file format that conveys binary information in ASCII text form, making it possible to store on non-binary media such as paper tape, punch cards, etc., to display on ...

* EDIT * LIB * LINK * LOCATE

References

External links

*

Additional reverse engineered source

ISX - An ISIS-II emulator
{{DEFAULTSORT:ISIS(operating system) Intel software Microcomputer software Disk operating systems Floppy disk-based operating systems

Overview

Commands

See also

References

Further reading

External links