QNX (thing)

Humm... looks like it's time for a history lesson!

QNX was originally created by Dan Dodge and Gordon Bell in 1980 and ran on prototype, wire-wrapped 8088 and 6809 machines.

The OS was originally called Qunix, "Quantum UNIX", until they received a polite letter from AT&T's lawyers asking that they change the name.

One of the first high-volume applications for QNX was as the enabling keyboard timeout dedicated word-processing machines to provide networked file servers. QNX was also used in the ICON machines that were destined for classrooms in Ontario schools.

Until recently, QNX was used for everything from medical instrumentation to nuclear reactor monitoring, to traffic light control, to brewing beer. You probably use QNX several times a day without being aware of it. However, with the new Neutrino kernel, the OS has advanced into the desktop market, see: The QNX Realtime Platform.

And now, some firsts:

• 1981: First microkernel OS for PCs.
• 1982: First PC operating system to support a hard disk (5MB Davong).
• 1983: First PC operating system to run in 80286 protected mode.
• 1984: First PC operating system to offer transparent distributed processing for PCs.
• 1985: First realtime OS to run on first 80386 Compaq machine.
• 1990: First POSIX-certified realtime microkernel OS.
• 1992: First realtime OS with built-in fault-tolerant networking (FLEETTM).
• 1994: First embeddable microkernel windowing system (Photon microGUI).
• 1996: First POSIX-based realtime microkernel for deeply embedded systems (QNX/Neutrino).
• 1997: First desktop-caliber web browser for embedded systems (Voyager).
• 1998: First to fit an OS, GUI, browser, server, dialer, TCP/IP, and more onto a 1.44M disk (1.44M Demo Disk).
• 2000: First to offer a self-hosted, graphical platform for embedded developers.

See:
- http://www.qnx.com/
- http://www.qnxzone.com/