Development of the NLTSS operating system
P.J. Du Bois · OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) · 1984
The NLTSS implementation effort has been going on for some five years now. Many parts of the system have been running for several years, but are undergoing constant change. There are three areas to consider. First, the distributable network operating system and communications protocols require a careful study of requirements and goals. The development of the LINCS architecture in concert with the perceived structure of the NLTSS message system and servers was a complex social process in which we all had to learn the give and take of negotiation. Reaching consensus agreements was often a lengthy and uncomfortable process. Then choosing the algorithms for implementation and developing them in a network environment is complicated. Secondly, the implementation effort itself was complicated by the use of new programming techniques, e.g., use of the MODEL language, the design for co-servers. Determining efficient mechanisms for communication and input/output in a message passing network architecture takes time. Oftentimes, special case optimizations would be implemented too quickly. There was and still is a lot of try, learn, try again technique employed in the development of NLTSS and LINCS. In the beginning of the project all the various support tools were yet to be conceived andmore » implemented. These actually represent a major portion of the first couple of years' work.« less