If IBM has a problem with disparate incompatible operating systems, with 48-bit MCP, 16-bit MCP, 36-bit OS1100, 32-bit OS/3 and Unix, Unisys Corp has the problem in spades – and according to Computer Systems News, the company plans to adopt a similar tack to IBM in solving the problem. In answer to IBM’s Systems Application Architecture, a set of common interfaces that each IBM operating system is being designed to intercept, and a single standard for interfacing to the user interface on the screen actually there are two such standards, depending on the type of screen used – Unisys Corp is working on what it calls the Solution Generation Environment. Like IBM’s evolving offering, it is a set of guidelines that will promise that if software developers adhere to them faithfully, their applications will be portable between incompatible Unisys systems. The basis for the Solution Generation Environment will be the Burroughs Linc and the Sperry Mapper applications generators, each of which are already supported on most of Unisys’ major processor families, enabling applications developed with them to be moved between disparate Unisys machines, plus the company’s embracing of the Open Systems Interconnection seven-layer model and other industry standards. As far as the user interface is concerned, Unisys plans to create a consistent user interface that will support existing windowing packages such as IBM’s Presentation Manager. There will also be a network adminstration system that will monitor networks of heterogeneous computers, so that users will be able to track where applications reside on the network – and it will in erface with third party network management systems. Unisys has not given any dates for introduction of the elements that will make up its Solution Generation Environment.
