PERQ
Encyclopedia
The PERQ, also referred to as the Three Rivers PERQ or ICL PERQ, was a pioneering workstation
computer
produced in the early 1980s.
The workstation was conceived by six former Carnegie Mellon University
alumni
and employees, Brian Rosen, Jim Teter, Bill Broadley, Stan Kriz, Raj Reddy and Paul Newbury, who formed the startup Three Rivers Computer Corporation
(3RCC) in 1974. Brian Rosen also worked at Xerox PARC
on the Dolphin workstation. The PERQ design was influenced by the original workstation computer, the Xerox Alto
. It was the first commercially-produced personal workstation, a prototype PERQ being shown at the 1979 SIGGRAPH
conference. The origin of the name "PERQ" is from the word perquisite
.
As a result of interest from the UK
Science Research Council
(later, the Science and Engineering Research Council), 3RCC entered into a relationship with the British computer company ICL in 1981 for European distribution, and later co-development and manufacturing. The PERQ was used in a number of academic research projects in the UK during the 1980s.
3RCC was renamed PERQ System Corporation in 1984. It went out of business in 1986, largely due to competition from other workstation manufacturers such as Sun Microsystems
, Apollo Computer
and Silicon Graphics
.
was a microcode
d discrete logic design, rather than a microprocessor
. It was based around 74S181 bit-slice ALU
s and an Am2910
microcode sequencer. The PERQ CPU was unusual in having 20-bit wide registers and a writable control store
(WCS), allowing the microcode to be redefined. The CPU had a microinstruction cycle period of 170 ns (5.88 MHz).
The PERQ 1 CPU had a WCS comprising 4k words of 48-bit microcode memory. The later PERQ 1A CPU extended the WCS to 16k words. The PERQ 1 could be configured with 256 kB, 1MB or 2 MB of 64-bit-wide RAM (accessed via a 16-bit bus), a 12 or 24 MB, 14-inch Shugart
SA-4000-series hard disk
, and an 8-inch floppy disk drive. The internal layout of the PERQ 1 was dominated by the vertically-mounted hard disk drive. It was largely this that determined the height and depth of the chassis. The disk drive was driven by an electric motor, with the two coupled by a rubber-compound belt drive.
A basic PERQ 1 system comprised a CPU board, a memory board (incorporating the framebuffer
and monitor interface) and an I/O
board (IOB, also called CIO). The IOB included a Zilog Z80
microprocessor
, an IEEE-488
interface, an RS-232
serial port
, hard and floppy disk interfaces and speech synthesis
hardware. PERQ 1s also had a spare Optional I/O (OIO) board slot for additional interfaces such as Ethernet
.
A graphics tablet
was standard. Most PERQ 1s were supplied with an 8½ ×11-inch, 768×1024 pixel portrait orientation
white phosphor monochrome
monitor.
The PERQ 2 used the same 16k WCS CPU as the PERQ 1A and had a 3-button mouse
in place of the graphics tablet. It was configured with a quieter 8-inch 35 MB Micropolis Corporation 1201 hard disk, 1 or 2 MB of RAM and had the option of the PERQ 1's portrait monitor or a 19-inch, 1280×1024 landscape orientation monitor.
Due to manufacturing problems with the original 3RCC PERQ 2 (also known as the K1), ICL revised the hardware design, resulting in the PERQ 2 T1 (or ICL 8222).
The later PERQ 2 T2 (ICL 8223) and PERQ 2 T4 models replaced the 8-inch hard disk with a 5¼-inch hard disk, which also allowed for a second disk to be installed internally.
The T4 model (of which only around 10 are thought to have been produced) had an extended 24-bit CPU and backplane
bus, allowing the use of a 4MB RAM board.
The PERQ 2 retained the PERQ 1's OIO slot, but replaced the IOB with either an EIO (Ethernet I/O) or NIO (Non-Ethernet I/O) boards. These were similar to the IOB, with the addition of a non-volatile real-time clock
, a second RS-232 port, and (on the EIO board) an Ethernet interface.
68020 microprocessor
and 68881 floating-point unit, plus two AMD 29116A 32-bit
bit slice processors which acted as graphics co-processors. It also had up to 2 MB of RAM, a SCSI
hard disk and was housed in a desktop "mini-tower"-style enclosure. The operating system was a port of UNIX System V
Release 2 called PNX 300. Prototype units were produced in 1985, but the project was cancelled before full production commenced (the project had run late and ICL decided it was a solution provider - it would sell Sun workstations as part of the solution).
Another workstation design under development at the time of the company's demise, the PERQ 3B was a colour model (sometimes referred to as the PERQ 5) was taken over by Crosfield Electronics for its Crosfield Studio 9500 page layout
workstation. The workstation was also known internally as Python, was developed in 1986 jointly by MegaScan and Conner Scelza Associates (both in Gibsonia
, Pittsburgh) and the Crosfield team (in Hemel Hempstead
, England). MegaScan, led by Brian Rosen, developed the workstation electronics and Conner Scelza Associates (led by Jerry Conner and Don Scelza) ported UNIX and wrote all the other supporting software. Crosfield (led by Andrew Chapman) were the overall project managers and had embeded engineers in MegaScan (Simon Butler and Mark Somervail) and Conner Scelza (Roger Willcocks).
The Crosfield requirement was for a very high performance graphics system (known as Viper, developed by their subsidiary benchMark Technologies) and a large (at the time) amount of disk storage. The Crosfield team in Hemel Hempstead developed an early RAID
solution that supported up to 8 SCSI
controllers operating in parallel with data streaming from 5¼-inch full-height drives and a fast fibre-optic network known as GALAN. Prototypes were running in late 1986 in both the USA and UK and volume production from Crosfield's Peterborough
factory started early 1987.
controller. Thus, a PERQ 2 could be configured with two Ethernet ports (EIO plus OIO). A dot-matrix printer could also be connected to the RS-232 or IEEE-488 ports. Other third-party OIO boards were produced to interface to other devices, such as QIC-02 tape drive
s or video camera
s.
(specifically, an extended PERQ Pascal). Q-Code instructions could be executed at a rate of up to 1 million instructions per second. This gave rise to the alternative definition of the PERQ name: Pascal Evaluation Real Quick. In fact it was generally more efficient to use Pascal than to attempt to create "assembly language
" programs directly with Q-Code.
s were developed for the PERQ. These included:
POS (PERQ Operating System): The initial single-task operating system for PERQ workstations, developed by 3RCC. POS and its utilities were written in PERQ Pascal.
MPOS (Multitasking POS): A multitasking
version of POS, not officially released by 3RCC.
Accent
: A multitasking research operating system developed at CMU, with a window manager
called Sapphire. Accent was a predecessor of the Mach kernel which many later operating systems would use. A UNIX System V
-compatible environment running under Accent in a Sapphire window, called QNIX, was developed by Spider Systems
.
PNX: A port of Unix
for the PERQ, based on Seventh Edition Unix and UNIX System III
. This was developed by ICL at Bracknell
, Dalkeith Palace
and later Kidsgrove (Staffordshire)
for the UK research community. PNX used its own microcode, more appropriate for the C programming language
, called C-Code.
FLEX
: Developed by the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment
, FLEX was implemented in microcode and similar to other early workstation systems such as Lisp machine
s, UCSD Pascal
or Modula-2
, except that the language of choice was ALGOL 68
.
and bitmapped graphics
. Intran (around 1982) produced a pioneering graphical program suite called MetaForm, which consisted of the separate Graphics Builder, Font Builder, Form Builder, and File Manager programs. The PERQ also served as a dedicated platform for several pioneering hypertext
programs, such as ZOG
, KMS
, and Guide
. DP ("Drawing Package"), a CAD
system used for creating circuit diagram
s on the PERQ, was written by Dario Giuse at CMU.
Workstation
A workstation is a high-end microcomputer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems...
computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
produced in the early 1980s.
The workstation was conceived by six former Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
alumni
Alumnus
An alumnus , according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is "a graduate of a school, college, or university." An alumnus can also be a former member, employee, contributor or inmate as well as a former student. In addition, an alumna is "a female graduate or former student of a school, college,...
and employees, Brian Rosen, Jim Teter, Bill Broadley, Stan Kriz, Raj Reddy and Paul Newbury, who formed the startup Three Rivers Computer Corporation
Three Rivers Computer Corporation
The Three Rivers Computer Corporation was a spinoff of the Computer Science department at Carnegie-Mellon University, and was founded in 1974 by Brian Rosen, James Teter, Bill Broadley, Stan Kriz, Raj Reddy and Paul Newbury. The company was located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. The company's...
(3RCC) in 1974. Brian Rosen also worked at Xerox PARC
Xerox PARC
PARC , formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and co-development company in Palo Alto, California, with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology and hardware systems....
on the Dolphin workstation. The PERQ design was influenced by the original workstation computer, the Xerox Alto
Xerox Alto
The Xerox Alto was one of the first computers designed for individual use , making it arguably what is now called a personal computer. It was developed at Xerox PARC in 1973...
. It was the first commercially-produced personal workstation, a prototype PERQ being shown at the 1979 SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH is the name of the annual conference on computer graphics convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization. The first SIGGRAPH conference was in 1974. The conference is attended by tens of thousands of computer professionals...
conference. The origin of the name "PERQ" is from the word perquisite
Employee benefit
Employee benefits and benefits in kind are various non-wage compensations provided to employees in addition to their normal wages or salaries...
.
As a result of interest from the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Science Research Council
Science and Engineering Research Council
The Science and Engineering Research Council used to be the UK agency in charge of publicly funded scientific and engineering research activities including astronomy, biotechnology and biological sciences, space research and particle physics...
(later, the Science and Engineering Research Council), 3RCC entered into a relationship with the British computer company ICL in 1981 for European distribution, and later co-development and manufacturing. The PERQ was used in a number of academic research projects in the UK during the 1980s.
3RCC was renamed PERQ System Corporation in 1984. It went out of business in 1986, largely due to competition from other workstation manufacturers such as Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
, Apollo Computer
Apollo Computer
Apollo Computer, Inc., founded 1980 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts by William Poduska and others, developed and produced Apollo/Domain workstations in the 1980s. Along with Symbolics and Sun Microsystems, Apollo was one of the first vendors of graphical workstations in the 1980s...
and Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
.
Processor
The PERQ CPUCentral processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
was a microcode
Microcode
Microcode is a layer of hardware-level instructions and/or data structures involved in the implementation of higher level machine code instructions in many computers and other processors; it resides in special high-speed memory and translates machine instructions into sequences of detailed...
d discrete logic design, rather than a microprocessor
Microprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
. It was based around 74S181 bit-slice ALU
Arithmetic logic unit
In computing, an arithmetic logic unit is a digital circuit that performs arithmetic and logical operations.The ALU is a fundamental building block of the central processing unit of a computer, and even the simplest microprocessors contain one for purposes such as maintaining timers...
s and an Am2910
AMD Am2900
Am2900 is a family of integrated circuits created in 1975 by Advanced Micro Devices . They were constructed with bipolar devices, in a bit-slice topology, and were designed to be used as modular components each representing a different aspect of a computer control unit...
microcode sequencer. The PERQ CPU was unusual in having 20-bit wide registers and a writable control store
Control store
A control store is the part of a CPU's control unit that stores the CPU's microprogram. It is usually accessed by a microsequencer. Early control stores were implemented as a diode-array accessed via address decoders, a form of read-only memory. This tradition dates back to the program timing...
(WCS), allowing the microcode to be redefined. The CPU had a microinstruction cycle period of 170 ns (5.88 MHz).
PERQ 1
The original PERQ (also known as the PERQ 1), launched in 1980, was housed in a pedestal-type cabinet with a brown fascia and an 8-inch floppy disk drive mounted horizontally at the top.The PERQ 1 CPU had a WCS comprising 4k words of 48-bit microcode memory. The later PERQ 1A CPU extended the WCS to 16k words. The PERQ 1 could be configured with 256 kB, 1MB or 2 MB of 64-bit-wide RAM (accessed via a 16-bit bus), a 12 or 24 MB, 14-inch Shugart
Shugart Associates
Shugart Associates was a computer peripheral manufacturer that dominated the floppy disk drive market in the late 1970s and is famous for introducing the 5¼-inch minifloppy disk drive....
SA-4000-series hard disk
Hard disk
A hard disk drive is a non-volatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the...
, and an 8-inch floppy disk drive. The internal layout of the PERQ 1 was dominated by the vertically-mounted hard disk drive. It was largely this that determined the height and depth of the chassis. The disk drive was driven by an electric motor, with the two coupled by a rubber-compound belt drive.
A basic PERQ 1 system comprised a CPU board, a memory board (incorporating the framebuffer
Framebuffer
A framebuffer is a video output device that drives a video display from a memory buffer containing a complete frame of data.The information in the memory buffer typically consists of color values for every pixel on the screen...
and monitor interface) and an I/O
Input/output
In computing, input/output, or I/O, refers to the communication between an information processing system , and the outside world, possibly a human, or another information processing system. Inputs are the signals or data received by the system, and outputs are the signals or data sent from it...
board (IOB, also called CIO). The IOB included a Zilog Z80
Zilog Z80
The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog and sold from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes...
microprocessor
Microprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
, an IEEE-488
IEEE-488
IEEE-488 is a short-range digital communications bus specification. It was created for use with automated test equipment in the late 1960s, and is still in use for that purpose. IEEE-488 was created as HP-IB , and is commonly called GPIB...
interface, an RS-232
RS-232
In telecommunications, RS-232 is the traditional name for a series of standards for serial binary single-ended data and control signals connecting between a DTE and a DCE . It is commonly used in computer serial ports...
serial port
Serial port
In computing, a serial port is a serial communication physical interface through which information transfers in or out one bit at a time...
, hard and floppy disk interfaces and speech synthesis
Speech synthesis
Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware...
hardware. PERQ 1s also had a spare Optional I/O (OIO) board slot for additional interfaces such as Ethernet
Ethernet
Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
.
A graphics tablet
Graphics tablet
A graphics tablet is a computer input device that enables a user to hand-draw images and graphics, similar to the way a person draws images with a pencil and paper. These tablets may also be used to capture data or handwritten signatures...
was standard. Most PERQ 1s were supplied with an 8½ ×11-inch, 768×1024 pixel portrait orientation
Page orientation
Page orientation is the way in which a rectangular page is oriented for normal viewing. The two most common types of orientation are portrait and landscape...
white phosphor monochrome
Monochrome
Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white...
monitor.
PERQ 2
The PERQ 2 (codenamed Kristmas during development) was announced in 1983. The PERQ 2 could be distinguished from the PERQ 1 by its wider, ICL-designed cabinet, with a lighter-coloured fascia, vertical floppy disk drive and three-digit diagnostic display.The PERQ 2 used the same 16k WCS CPU as the PERQ 1A and had a 3-button mouse
Mouse (computing)
In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons...
in place of the graphics tablet. It was configured with a quieter 8-inch 35 MB Micropolis Corporation 1201 hard disk, 1 or 2 MB of RAM and had the option of the PERQ 1's portrait monitor or a 19-inch, 1280×1024 landscape orientation monitor.
Due to manufacturing problems with the original 3RCC PERQ 2 (also known as the K1), ICL revised the hardware design, resulting in the PERQ 2 T1 (or ICL 8222).
The later PERQ 2 T2 (ICL 8223) and PERQ 2 T4 models replaced the 8-inch hard disk with a 5¼-inch hard disk, which also allowed for a second disk to be installed internally.
The T4 model (of which only around 10 are thought to have been produced) had an extended 24-bit CPU and backplane
Backplane
A backplane is a group of connectors connected in parallel with each other, so that each pin of each connector is linked to the same relative pin of all the other connectors forming a computer bus. It is used as a backbone to connect several printed circuit boards together to make up a complete...
bus, allowing the use of a 4MB RAM board.
The PERQ 2 retained the PERQ 1's OIO slot, but replaced the IOB with either an EIO (Ethernet I/O) or NIO (Non-Ethernet I/O) boards. These were similar to the IOB, with the addition of a non-volatile real-time clock
Real-time clock
A real-time clock is a computer clock that keeps track of the current time. Although the term often refers to the devices in personal computers, servers and embedded systems, RTCs are present in almost any electronic device which needs to keep accurate time.-Terminology:The term is used to avoid...
, a second RS-232 port, and (on the EIO board) an Ethernet interface.
PERQ 3
The PERQ 3A (otherwise known as the ICL 3300 Advanced Graphics Workstation) was developed by ICL as a replacement for the PERQ 2. The PERQ 3A had an all-new hardware architecture based around a 12.5 MHz MotorolaMotorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
68020 microprocessor
Microprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
and 68881 floating-point unit, plus two AMD 29116A 32-bit
32-bit
The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295. Hence, a processor with 32-bit memory addresses can directly access 4 GB of byte-addressable memory....
bit slice processors which acted as graphics co-processors. It also had up to 2 MB of RAM, a SCSI
SCSI
Small Computer System Interface is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, and electrical and optical interfaces. SCSI is most commonly used for hard disks and tape drives, but it...
hard disk and was housed in a desktop "mini-tower"-style enclosure. The operating system was a port of UNIX System V
UNIX System V
Unix System V, commonly abbreviated SysV , is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by American Telephone & Telegraph and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, termed Releases 1, 2, 3 and 4...
Release 2 called PNX 300. Prototype units were produced in 1985, but the project was cancelled before full production commenced (the project had run late and ICL decided it was a solution provider - it would sell Sun workstations as part of the solution).
Another workstation design under development at the time of the company's demise, the PERQ 3B was a colour model (sometimes referred to as the PERQ 5) was taken over by Crosfield Electronics for its Crosfield Studio 9500 page layout
Page layout
Page layout is the part of graphic design that deals in the arrangement and style treatment of elements on a page.- History and development :...
workstation. The workstation was also known internally as Python, was developed in 1986 jointly by MegaScan and Conner Scelza Associates (both in Gibsonia
Gibsonia, Pennsylvania
Gibsonia is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Allegheny County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, north of the city of Pittsburgh. It had a population of 2,733 at the 2010 census. Its ZIP Code is 15044.-Geography:...
, Pittsburgh) and the Crosfield team (in Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead is a town in Hertfordshire in the East of England, to the north west of London and part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population at the 2001 Census was 81,143 ....
, England). MegaScan, led by Brian Rosen, developed the workstation electronics and Conner Scelza Associates (led by Jerry Conner and Don Scelza) ported UNIX and wrote all the other supporting software. Crosfield (led by Andrew Chapman) were the overall project managers and had embeded engineers in MegaScan (Simon Butler and Mark Somervail) and Conner Scelza (Roger Willcocks).
The Crosfield requirement was for a very high performance graphics system (known as Viper, developed by their subsidiary benchMark Technologies) and a large (at the time) amount of disk storage. The Crosfield team in Hemel Hempstead developed an early RAID
RAID
RAID is a storage technology that combines multiple disk drive components into a logical unit...
solution that supported up to 8 SCSI
SCSI
Small Computer System Interface is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, and electrical and optical interfaces. SCSI is most commonly used for hard disks and tape drives, but it...
controllers operating in parallel with data streaming from 5¼-inch full-height drives and a fast fibre-optic network known as GALAN. Prototypes were running in late 1986 in both the USA and UK and volume production from Crosfield's Peterborough
Peterborough
Peterborough is a cathedral city and unitary authority area in the East of England, with an estimated population of in June 2007. For ceremonial purposes it is in the county of Cambridgeshire. Situated north of London, the city stands on the River Nene which flows into the North Sea...
factory started early 1987.
Peripherals
Various optional OIO boards were produced for the PERQ 1 and 2: 3RCC OIO boards provided a 16-bit parallel PERQlink interface (intended for downloading microcode from another PERQ at boot time) plus Ethernet and/or a Canon CX laser printerLaser printer
A laser printer is a common type of computer printer that rapidly produces high quality text and graphics on plain paper. As with digital photocopiers and multifunction printers , laser printers employ a xerographic printing process, but differ from analog photocopiers in that the image is produced...
controller. Thus, a PERQ 2 could be configured with two Ethernet ports (EIO plus OIO). A dot-matrix printer could also be connected to the RS-232 or IEEE-488 ports. Other third-party OIO boards were produced to interface to other devices, such as QIC-02 tape drive
Tape drive
A tape drive is a data storage device that reads and performs digital recording, writes data on a magnetic tape. Magnetic tape data storage is typically used for offline, archival data storage. Tape media generally has a favorable unit cost and long archival stability.A tape drive provides...
s or video camera
Video camera
A video camera is a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition, initially developed by the television industry but now common in other applications as well. The earliest video cameras were those of John Logie Baird, based on the electromechanical Nipkow disk and used by the BBC in...
s.
Software
The PERQ's original p-Code-like instruction set (called Q-Code) was optimized for PascalPascal (programming language)
Pascal is an influential imperative and procedural programming language, designed in 1968/9 and published in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth as a small and efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring.A derivative known as Object Pascal...
(specifically, an extended PERQ Pascal). Q-Code instructions could be executed at a rate of up to 1 million instructions per second. This gave rise to the alternative definition of the PERQ name: Pascal Evaluation Real Quick. In fact it was generally more efficient to use Pascal than to attempt to create "assembly language
Assembly language
An assembly language is a low-level programming language for computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other programmable devices. It implements a symbolic representation of the machine codes and other constants needed to program a given CPU architecture...
" programs directly with Q-Code.
Operating systems
A variety of operating systemOperating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s were developed for the PERQ. These included:
POS (PERQ Operating System): The initial single-task operating system for PERQ workstations, developed by 3RCC. POS and its utilities were written in PERQ Pascal.
MPOS (Multitasking POS): A multitasking
Computer multitasking
In computing, multitasking is a method where multiple tasks, also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. In the case of a computer with a single CPU, only one task is said to be running at any point in time, meaning that the CPU is actively executing instructions for...
version of POS, not officially released by 3RCC.
Accent
Accent kernel
Accent was an operating system kernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University . Accent was developed as a follow-on to the Aleph kernel developed at the University of Rochester, fixing several of its problems and re-targeting its hardware support for networks of workstation machines instead of...
: A multitasking research operating system developed at CMU, with a window manager
Window manager
A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment...
called Sapphire. Accent was a predecessor of the Mach kernel which many later operating systems would use. A UNIX System V
UNIX System V
Unix System V, commonly abbreviated SysV , is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by American Telephone & Telegraph and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, termed Releases 1, 2, 3 and 4...
-compatible environment running under Accent in a Sapphire window, called QNIX, was developed by Spider Systems
Spider Systems
Spider Systems Ltd. was a computer network products company, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1983 by several former employees of ICL who had previously worked at ICL's Scottish Development Centre at Dalkeith Palace until its closure earlier that year.Spider Systems produced a wide...
.
PNX: A port of Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
for the PERQ, based on Seventh Edition Unix and UNIX System III
UNIX System III
UNIX System III was a version of the Unix operating system released by AT&T's Unix Support Group . It was first released outside of Bell Labs in 1982. UNIX System III was a mix of various AT&T Unixes: PWB/UNIX 2.0, CB UNIX 3.0, UNIX/TS 3.0.1 and UNIX/32V...
. This was developed by ICL at Bracknell
Bracknell
Bracknell is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Bracknell Forest in Berkshire, England. It lies to the south-east of Reading, southwest of Windsor and west of central London...
, Dalkeith Palace
Dalkeith Palace
Dalkeith Palace in Dalkeith, Midlothian, Scotland, is the former seat of the Duke of Buccleuch.Dalkeith Castle was located to the north east of Dalkeith, and was originally in the hands of the Clan Graham in the 12th century and given to the Douglas family in the early 14th century. James Douglas...
and later Kidsgrove (Staffordshire)
Kidsgrove
Kidsgrove is a town in the borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England, near the border with Cheshire. It forms part of The Potteries Urban Area in North Staffordshire, along with Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme. It has a population of 24,112...
for the UK research community. PNX used its own microcode, more appropriate for the C programming language
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
, called C-Code.
FLEX
Flex machine
In computing, there have been multiple systems named FLEX.-Alan Kay's FLEX system:Alan Kay developed his Flex system in the late 1960s while exploring ideas that would later evolve into the Smalltalk programming language.-RSRE FLEX Computer System:...
: Developed by the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment
Royal Signals and Radar Establishment
The Royal Signals and Radar Establishment was a scientific research establishment within the Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom, located primarily at Malvern in Worcestershire. It was formed in 1976 in an amalgamation of earlier research establishments including the Royal Radar Establishment...
, FLEX was implemented in microcode and similar to other early workstation systems such as Lisp machine
Lisp machine
Lisp machines were general-purpose computers designed to efficiently run Lisp as their main software language. In a sense, they were the first commercial single-user workstations...
s, UCSD Pascal
UCSD Pascal
UCSD Pascal was a Pascal programming language system that ran on the UCSD p-System, a portable, highly machine-independent operating system. UCSD Pascal was first released in 1978...
or Modula-2
Modula-2
Modula-2 is a computer programming language designed and developed between 1977 and 1980 by Niklaus Wirth at ETH Zurich as a revision of Pascal to serve as the sole programming language for the operating system and application software for the personal workstation Lilith...
, except that the language of choice was ALGOL 68
ALGOL 68
ALGOL 68 isan imperative computerprogramming language that was conceived as a successor to theALGOL 60 programming language, designed with the goal of a...
.
Applications
The PERQ was a popular early graphical workstation; therefore, it helped spawn many early third-party applications that took advantage of the graphical user interfaceGraphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
and bitmapped graphics
Raster graphics
In computer graphics, a raster graphics image, or bitmap, is a data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or points of color, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium...
. Intran (around 1982) produced a pioneering graphical program suite called MetaForm, which consisted of the separate Graphics Builder, Font Builder, Form Builder, and File Manager programs. The PERQ also served as a dedicated platform for several pioneering hypertext
Hypertext
Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the...
programs, such as ZOG
ZOG (hypertext)
ZOG was an early hypertext system developed at Carnegie Mellon University during the 1970s by Donald McCracken and Robert Akscyn. ZOG was first developed by Allen Newell and George Robertson to serve as the front end for AI and Cognitive Science programs brought together at CMU for a summer workshop...
, KMS
KMS (hypertext)
KMS, an abbreviation of Knowledge Management System, was a commercial second generation hypermedia system, originally created as a successor for the early hypermedia system ZOG...
, and Guide
Guide (hypertext)
Guide was a hypertext system originally developed by Peter J. Brown at the University of Kent in 1982. The original Guide implementation was for Three Rivers PERQ workstations running Unix. The Guide system was also the third hypertext system to be sold commercially, after it was taken over by...
. DP ("Drawing Package"), a CAD
Computer-aided design
Computer-aided design , also known as computer-aided design and drafting , is the use of computer technology for the process of design and design-documentation. Computer Aided Drafting describes the process of drafting with a computer...
system used for creating circuit diagram
Circuit diagram
A circuit diagram is a simplified conventional graphical representation of an electrical circuit...
s on the PERQ, was written by Dario Giuse at CMU.
External links
- All About PERQ Workstations
- DigiBarn: The Three Rivers PERQ
- PERQ Documentation at bitsavers.org
- Graphical User Interface Gallery: Three Rivers / ICL Perq
- Rutherford Laboratory Atlas Computing Division: Single User System Programme archive. Includes detailed material relating to PERQ history as it affected a joint project involving the Science and Engineering Research Council and ICL.
- PERQemu: a PERQ 1 emulator for Microsoft Windows/Mono (under development, v0.21 is capable of booting and running POS)