The Xerox Operating System (XOS) was an operating system for the XDS Sigma series of computers "optimized for direct replacement of IBM

DOS/360 Disk Operating System/360, also DOS/360, or simply DOS, is the discontinued first member of a sequence of operating systems for IBM System/360, System/370 and later mainframes. It was announced by IBM on the last day of 1964, and it was first de ...

installations" and to provide

real-time Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...

and

timesharing In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.DEC Timesharing (1965), by Peter Clark, The DEC Professional, Volume 1, Number 1 Its emergence a ...

support. The system was developed, beginning in 1969, for Xerox by the French firm CII (now

Bull A bull is an intact (i.e., not castrated) adult male of the species '' Bos taurus'' (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the females of the same species (i.e., cows), bulls have long been an important symbol in many religions, incl ...

). XOS was more successful in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

than in the US, but was unable to compete with IBM. By 1972 there were 35 XOS installations in Europe, compared to 2 in the US.

References

External links

XOS Documentation at Bitsavers

XOS: the Xerox operating system, general information digest
{{Operating system Discontinued operating systems Proprietary operating systems

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