History has a curious way of repeating itself in the realm of technology, where past innovations often resurface in modern contexts, breathing new life into age-old concepts. A prime illustration of this phenomenon is the reemergence of Database-Oriented Operating Systems (DBOS), a visionary idea that echoes the groundbreaking era of MultiValue databases in the 1960s.
DBOS, conceived in 2020 as a collaborative open-source project between MIT, Stanford, and Carnegie Mellon University, aims to revolutionize large-scale distributed applications by simplifying and enhancing scalability, security, and resilience. This initiative stemmed from a brainstorm session between industry luminaries Michael Stonebraker and Matei Zaharia, driven by the need to tackle the challenges of scaling and optimizing millions of Apache Spark tasks.
Rediscovering the Roots: GIRLS and the Birth of Database-Oriented Operating Systems
In exploring the origins of Database-Oriented Operating Systems (DBOS), we uncover a remarkable chapter in computing history that predates many contemporary innovations…
Well I started Picking away in Feb. 1985 working for a small Software House in Johannesburg, South Africa. We had a Manufacturing and Distribution ERP type system with a few clients. Worked out of a house and our computer was an ICL Clan which was a so called mini computer. I thought it was some kind of air conditioning unit when I first saw it. My experience to that point had been with massive systems that took up large amounts of space. My new job involved learning Pick and Pick BASIC and we were in the process of converting from a PRIME based system to R83. Since then I moved around a bit and picked up experience with AP , UNIVERSE, UNIDATA etc. and am currently working mainly with D3, which I first learned about when my family and I moved to Los Angeles nearly 26 years ago. Experience with applications have ranged from Distribution/retail, Manufacturing, Insurance, Logistics to name a few. So as some wet behind the ears college kid one told me, when we met for the first time, , "I didn't know their were any Pick dinosaurs left" , I was a bit taken aback and didn't quite know what to say, but should have said "yes and we're T-Rexes and eat people like you." :)