AT&T Joining OSF

[Mark Funkenhauser]

In article <1213 at ficc.UUCP> peter at ficc.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
>In article <57 at minya.UUCP>, jc at minya.UUCP (John Chambers) writes:
>> Nah; in fact, it's getting to be high time that we started seriously talking
>> about a good follow-on to Unix.
>
>Please... whoever decides to get into this: make one of the requirements
>be that it be smaller than System V!
>
>A non-monolithic kernel would be nice, too. Maybe something like Tunis.
>(though in 'C' instead of Concurrent Euclid)

Tunis is a rewrite of the UNIX kernel from scratch. The goal was to use
all the latest and greatest software engineering techniques.
(i.e., modularity, information hiding, concurrency, hierarchical structure ...)
A side effect of the Tunis project, was the creation of a language
called Concurrent Euclid (CE). This language provided the modularity
and concurrency necessary to achieve the original goals.

Tunis has been rewritten in a high level language called Turing Plus (T+).
(the successor to CE).
It still has modules and monitors but it is much
more flexible and has added functionality so that almost everything
you could do in C you can also do in T+. 
This language has a formal semantic definition
and several features which can be used to produce reliable and correct
programs.

The whole exercise of TUNIS was to make it modular, maintainable and
portable. You lose some performance for the modularity but you gain big
in maintainability. You can rewrite the file manager (eg. from 4.1 to 4.2)
or change the memory manager (eg. swapping to paging) without effecting
(or even looking at) any other part of the system.

>
>Anything happening in the Tunis world lately?
>-- 

Tunis currently runs on the NS32000 architecture with ports
to the 68020 and SPARC are in progress. A port to the 88000 is planned.

In '85, there were 2 multi-cpu projects. A master-slave/real-time
and a symmetric (distributed) version.
Both were completed but the master-slave version had more success.
At one point it had 11 processors running at the same time.
The robotics group is the prime user of master-slave Tunis.

Current research into multiprocessors includes the design and construction
of a 100 processor system and using TUNIS as the operating system.
This project is called HECTOR.

Most recently we are working on using TUNIS as the base for a 
secure UNIX system. We are convinced that the modularity and hierarchical 
structure of TUNIS, as well as its implementation language,
is exactly what is required for a B2 and higher rated secure systems.
Funding for this project has been sporadic although Honeywell-Bull 
seemed very interested but no major commitment yet.
Anybody else out there interested?


Mark Funkenhauser - CSRI, University of Toronto  { funke at csri.toronto.edu }