Unisys Corp will make CTOS, the proprietary operating system burden it lumbered itself with, not only interoperable with Windows NT but also able to coexist on the server with the Microsoft Corp system. But Unisys is at pains to point out that it is not converting CTOS to Windows NT which it says would be too expensive and too long-winded a process, although it does not rule it out completely some time down the line. Unisys says by developing this interoperability and co-existence, it is responding to its customer base, many of whom have hundreds of thousands of lines of CTOS code in legacy applications that cannot be ditched, but that want to use Windows as an interface. The aim of Unisys’s work is to enable CTOS to talk to Windows NT and exchange data via Dynamic Document Exchange on a single server and enable access to either CTOS or Windows NT from the same workstation. The work should be done by early in the third quarter when Unisys will sell customers symmetric multiprocessing-capable iAPX-86-based hardware certified to run both Windows NT and CTOS. If the customer intends to use CTOS to begin with, then that will be loaded on the main processor; when the move to Windows NT is to be made, CTOS will be moved to an intelligent bus-mastering board in the machine’s EISA slot and NT will go on the master. The two systems will then be able to communicate. Unisys will demonstrate the technology at Hannover in March. So far there are no prices but Unisys reckons it match other bus masters.
