ICL VME
| Developer | International Computers Limited, Fujitsu |
|---|---|
| Written in | S3, C |
| Working state | Discontinued |
| Initial release | mid-1970s |
| Platforms | ICL 2900 Series, ICL Series 39 mainframes |
| Official website | VME site |
VME (Virtual Machine Environment) is a mainframe operating system developed by the UK company International Computers Limited (ICL, now part of the Fujitsu group). Originally developed in the 1970s (as VME/B, later VME 2900) to drive ICL's then new 2900 Series mainframes, the operating system is now known as OpenVME incorporating a Unix subsystem, and runs on ICL Series 39 and Trimetra mainframe computers, as well as industry-standard x64 servers.
The development program for the New Range system started on the merger of International Computers and Tabulators (ICT) and English Electric Computers in 1968. One of the fundamental decisions was that it would feature a new operating system. A number of different feasibility and design studies were carried out within ICL, the three most notable being:
The chief architect of VME/B was Brian Warboys, who subsequently became professor of software engineering at the University of Manchester. A number of influences can be seen in its design, for example Multics and ICL's earlier George 3 operating system; however it was essentially designed from scratch.
VME was viewed as primarily competing with the System/360 IBM mainframe as a commercial operating system, and adopted the EBCDIC character encoding.
As a creation of the mid-1970s, with no constraints to be compatible with earlier operating systems, VME is in many ways more modern in its architecture than today's Unix derivatives (Unix was designed in the 1960s) or Microsoft Windows (which started as an operating system for single-user computers, and still betrays those origins).
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