On improving operating system efficency through use of a microprogrammed, low-level environment
George W. Cox, Victor B. Schneider · 1974
This paper concerns the measurement of possible gains to be made in efficiency of an operating system by implementing a selected subset of its basic modules in firmware. The subject of our measurement is a skeletal minicomputer operating system designed with modularity, adaptability, and portability in mind. The base system consists of a call support processor providing dynamic binding of procedures and a set of resource management and interprocess communication primitives.