Origins of QNX: From University of Waterloo's Thoth OS to Quantum Software
By
BirAdam
Hand-rolled, kettle-boiled, baked to perfection. Worth every minute at the bakery.
Summary
The article explores the origins of the QNX operating system, tracing its development from the Thoth real-time operating system created by Gordon Bell and Dan Dodge at the University of Waterloo in 1979. It details how Thoth evolved through multiple programming language iterations (B, Eh, Zed) and featured synchronous message passing, laying the foundation for what would become QNX - a microkernel-based UNIX-like operating system developed by Quantum Software.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledGordon Bell and Dan Dodge were finishing their time at the University of Waterloo in Ontario in 1979
they'd worked on a system called Thoth in their real-time operating systems course
Thoth was interesting not only for having been real-time and having featured synchronous message passing
originally having been written in the B programming language
then rewritten in the UW-native Eh language (fitting for a Canadian university), and then finally rewritten in Zed
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