this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024
226 points (99.1% liked)

PC Gaming

8244 readers
498 users here now

For PC gaming news and discussion. PCGamingWiki

Rules:

  1. Be Respectful.
  2. No Spam or Porn.
  3. No Advertising.
  4. No Memes.
  5. No Tech Support.
  6. No questions about buying/building computers.
  7. No game suggestions, friend requests, surveys, or begging.
  8. No Let's Plays, streams, highlight reels/montages, random videos or shorts.
  9. No off-topic posts/comments.
  10. Use the original source, no clickbait titles, no duplicates. (Submissions should be from the original source if possible, unless from paywalled or non-english sources. If the title is clickbait or lacks context you may lightly edit the title.)

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I wanted to know what OS powered them. Probably a custom one by the manufacturer? Which I can imagine I could find with a bit of web searching but I'm too lazy for that.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I did the research and it's a bit interesting. It was known was GMOS (General Motors Operating System) made for IBM devices. Yes, THE General Motors that makes cars like Buicks.

I'm oversimplifying, but if DOS was Windows Command line, GMOS would be like a Linux equivalent. It's all input/output and maybe executing a very specific program like a calculator.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

Not really. If DOS was Windows command line, this would be more like executing a series of jobs from the bootloader and waiting for output or errors to appear on the terminal or printer.

The only thing something like GMOS would have controlled is hardware resources and I/O. The "very specific program like a calculator" is accurate, but is loaded into memory via tape or punch cards or the like by the operator at runtime, alongside whatever other software was needed for the job batch.