THEOS
Encyclopedia
THEOS, which transcribes to "God" in Greek, is an operating system
Operating 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...
which started out as OASIS
OASIS operating system
The OASIS operating system was originally developed and distributed in 1977 by Phase One Systems of Oakland, California...
, a microcomputer operating system for small computers that use the Z80 processor. Originally written in the late 1970s by Timothy S. Williams as a low-cost alternative to the more expensive mini- and mainframe- computers that were popular in the day, OASIS provided time-sharing multiuser facilities to allow several users to utilise the resources of one computer. Similar in concept to MP/M or UNIX, THEOS uses external device drivers rather than a kernel, allowing it to be more portable to other environments, though support has been primarily directed towards industry-standard hardware (i.e. PC's). THEOS is specifically aimed at small business users, with a wide range of vertical-market applications packages being developed and supported by individuals and companies.
The languages distributed with THEOS include THEOS Multi-User Basic
THEOS Multi-User Basic
In the origin on OASIS operating system, THEOS Multi-User Basic is the dialect of BASIC used in the THEOS Operating System.THEOS 4.2 used THEOS BASIC version 32 Ver 2.0, while THEOS CORONA uses version Multi User Basic 32/64 Ver 2.1....
and C
C
Ĉ or ĉ is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing the sound .Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for all four of its postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets...
. A powerful EXEC shell language can be used for task automation or to produce a turnkey system.
When the operating system was launched for the IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
Personal Computer/AT
IBM Personal Computer/AT
The IBM Personal Computer AT, more commonly known as the IBM AT and also sometimes called the PC AT or PC/AT, was IBM's second-generation PC, designed around the 6 MHz Intel 80286 microprocessor and released in 1984 as machine type 5170...
in 1982, the decision was taken to change the name from OASIS to THEOS, short for THE Operating System.
A number of security features exist, including dynamic passwords (where the password includes part of the date or time, or client IP address, or other dynamic elements), allow/deny security, a comprehensive inbound and outbound firewall, and an option to require a certain level of encryption in the workstation connection. In addition, the object file format is proprietary, and the operating system uses Intel "protected mode" to further increase defence against buffer over-run attacks.
THEOS was introduced in Europe by Fujitsu
Fujitsu
is a Japanese multinational information technology equipment and services company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is the world's third-largest IT services provider measured by revenues....
and other hardware manufacturers 30 years ago, and is distributed by a number of distributors in Great Britain, Spain, Portgual, Germany, Italy and more. The 'current' version is THEOS Corona Commercial Release 6, which was released in December 2008, and a number of updates have been released since that time. The current Windows Workstation Client (as of May 2009) is version 3.16 from July 2003.