The Santa Cruz Operation Inc announced its first microkernel architecture operating system in conjunction with French software house Chorus Systemes SA. Chorus/Fusion for Santa Cruz is the result of the agreement between the two in September last year. The new product will not replace current Santa Cruz Unix implementations, but will extend the company’s product set towards complex real-time systems, embedded systems, high availability and clustered applications. It retains binary compatibility with Santa Cruz Unix, enabling existing applications to be run, but expands the application programming interface to include Posix real-time and thread extensions. There are three components: Chorus/Fusion Real-Time SCO Open Server supports standard Santa Cruz binaries, real-time extensions, transparent kernel-to-kernel communications, TCP/IP interoperability protocols and X Window server and clients; the Real-Time Node supports dedicated Posix 1003.1 b/c-based real-time processes, co-operating with other real-time processes and/or standard Santa Cruz applications on other nodes and servers; and the Development System combines a server with five nodes, a C development system and Chorus debugging tools. Avionics, telecommunications, point-of-sale and medical applications are highlighted as particularly suitable for the new technology, which should be able to handle complex distributed applications that link embedded real-time tasks with corporate computing centres. Currently in beta test, Chorus/Fusion for Santa Cruz should be generally available by January. Prices depend on volume, but are typically $30,000 for the development system, $1,118 for the Real-Time Server run-time (quantities of 10), and $400 for the Real-Time Node run-time (quantities of 100). Santa Cruz did not say whether the Chorus kernel would eventually be used to underpin its mainstream family of Unix operating systems.
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