Hydra (operating system)

Summary

Hydra (stylized as HYDRA) is an early, discontinued, capability-based, object-oriented microkernel designed to support a wide range of possible operating systems to run on it.[1] Hydra was created as part of the C.mmp project at Carnegie Mellon University in 1971.[2]

Hydra
DeveloperCarnegie Mellon University
Written inBLISS
OS familyCapability-based
Working stateDiscontinued
Initial release1971; 53 years ago (1971)
Final releaseFinal / 1975; 49 years ago (1975)
Marketing targetResearch
Available inEnglish
Update methodCompile from source code
Kernel typeMicrokernel
Default
user interface
Command-line interface

The name is based on the ancient Greek mythological creature the hydra.

Hydra was designed to be modular and secure, and intended to be flexible enough for easy experimentation.[3] The system was implemented in the programming language BLISS.[4]

References edit

  1. ^ Wulf 74 pp. 337–345
  2. ^ Siewiorek, Daniel P.; Bell, C. Gordon; Newell, Allen; Mashburn, Henry M. (1982). Computer Structures: Principles and Examples. New York, New York: McGraw-Hill.
  3. ^ Levy, Henry M. (1984). Capability-Based Computer Systems (PDF). Digital Press.
  4. ^ Wulf, William A.; Harbison, Samual P. Reflections in a pool of processors: An experience report on C.mmp/Hydra (PDF) (Report). p. 945.
  • Levin, R.; Cohen, E.; Corwin, W.; Pollack, F.; Wulf, William (November 1, 1975). "Policy/mechanism separation in Hydra". Proceedings of the fifth ACM symposium on operating systems principles. pp. 132–140. doi:10.1145/800213.806531. S2CID 10524544.
  • Wulf, William; Cohen, E.; Corwin, W.; Jones, A.; Levin, R.; Pierson, C.; Pollack, F. (June 1974). Hydra: The Kernel of a Multiprocessor Operating System. Vol. 17. pp. 337–345. doi:10.1145/355616.364017. S2CID 8011765. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 1, 2007.