March 30, 1994 An Overview Of The OS/2 Operating System For PowerPC Personal Computer Systems are continually evolving. The demands placed on today's systems continue to grow as the technologies we employ advance. Not only have the capabilities of, and demands upon, these systems increased, so has the complexity of these systems. Customers are demanding that system vendors reduce the complexity of these systems, while continuing to keep pace with the technology evolution. To achieve this goal, IBM has been implementing Workplace, a set of open standards and technologies that will reduce the complexity, improve the usability, and enhance the portability of applications and systems within today's complex computing environments. These open standards deliver a common look and feel to the user, common application programmer interfaces to the developer, and a means for a wide variety of systems to interoperate. Workplace begins with the OS/2 operating system. OS/2 (for Intel x86 based systems) is the premier client operating system that IBM offers today. The OS/2 operating system offers: An easy to use, productive user interface, Broad application coverage (OS/2, DOS, and Windows), Multiple connectivity options, Excellent memory management features, Crash protection via application isolation, Industrial strength features such as multi-tasking, multi-threading and 32-bit support, and State-of-the-art extensions for multimedia, pen and speech. Furthermore, the OS/2 operating system is gaining significant momentum in the marketplace. This momentum is demonstrated by the increased presence of the OS/2 operating system and OS/2 applications in retail stores, the winning of over two dozen significant industry awards, the commitment of large customers to rollout the OS/2 operating system and the overwhelmingly positive press coverage. OS/2 for the PowerPC, another Workplace operating system, combines all of the benefits of OS/2 with the power of RISC systems, in essence delivering the OS/2 operating system for the PowerPC. The combination of the OS/2 operating system and the PowerPC adds up to much more than just a faster OS/2 system. This combination delivers to the user a human centered system, a system that can interact with the user the way that people interact with each other, rather than requiring that people interact by system-oriented means. The OS/2 operating system for the PowerPC includes the world class human centered technologies, such as speech and handwriting recognition as well as multimedia, that have been available as options for OS/2 (for Intel). All PowerPC systems will contain the basic hardware elements necessary for human centered functions, without incurring any additional hardware cost. By providing the necessary software capabilities to all users, human centered computing is now available to the masses. With all users being able to take advantage of these human centered features, more and more software developers will be incorporating human centered features into their applications. The OS/2 operating system for the PowerPC has been designed with the future in mind. It is built upon IBM's new microkernel-based architecture (code name: Workplace OS) that has been developed for the delivery of a wide range of specific operating system products for different markets. This architecture provides a modern operating system base that is both modular and flexible. There are three major components to this architecture: The IBM Microkernel including Personality Neutral Services Operating System Personalities Common Personality Servers The IBM Microkernel along with the personality neutral services provides the hardware interface as well as the base operating system services. The operating system personalities provide the application execution environment along with the look and feel of the user interface. Common Personality Servers provide extended service support for databases, file systems, Local Area Network, communications and more, in such a way that these services can be shared fully or partially among different operating system personalities. This architecture will allow IBM, as well as others, to easily add new functions to OS/2 or any other operating system personality over time. This architecture benefits OS/2 in many ways. Several of the key benefits include: Portability - Applications written for OS/2 will be able to run on new hardware platforms as they are developed. Modularity - New function can be added to OS/2 in a modular fashion. This means that customers can easily configure their systems to provide the function they require without ending up with a system that is large and cumbersome. In addition, this means that IBM, as well as others, can make available new OS/2 function, without requiring a complete release of OS/2. This means that more capability can be made available more rapidly, as technology evolves, and at lower cost the customers. Scalability - OS/2 customers want to see the OS/2 operating system scale the range of hardware offerings from mobile to advanced server systems, and even up to mini-computers and mainframes. Reusability - OS/2 application developers can take advantage of the common service structure to maximize reuse of their code base. Common personality servers are written once and then used by all personalities on a system, rather than the conventional approach of writing a server for each operating system. In addition, these servers only need to be recompiled for use on other hardware platforms supporting the IBM microkernel. One of the first benefits to be delivered as a result of this architecture will be a clear migration path to objects. IBM intends to make object technology available to all OS/2 and AIX users through IBM/Taligent Application Frameworks layered on top of the native operating system. These same frameworks continue to be available with the OS/2 operating system for the PowerPC. Over time, IBM plans to deliver a complete Taligent personality, including not only the application frameworks, but also including object oriented system services, resulting in complete object technology exploitation. In addition, this Taligent personality will be able to coexist with the OS/2 personality, and others, allowing users to continue to run all their existing applications. Together the OS/2 operating system and the IBM Microkernel based architecture set the stage for the future. The IBM Microkernel architecture allows 32-bit OS/2 applications to migrate to other hardware platforms as they are developed by IBM and other hardware developers. This portability will build upon OS/2's current momentum. Furthermore, the modularity of this architecture reduces complexity and increases flexibility by providing re-use and sharing of fundamental system tasks and the ability to incorporate new technologies. The IBM Microkernel based architecture delivers an integrating platform for many operating systems and technologies, providing the system unification necessary to meet the challenging customer requirements of the future.