Commercial Operating System
| Company type | Operating system |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer software |
| Founder | Digital Equipment Corporation |
| Products | COS-310, COS-350 |
| Parent | Digital Equipment Corporation |
Commercial Operating System (COS) represents a now-obsolete series of operating systems created by Digital Equipment Corporation.
COS was compatible with the programming language DIBOL, which combines elements from BASIC, FORTRAN, and COBOL. Additionally, it supported IBM RPG (Report Program Generator), addressing the needs of business software development and time-sharing systems.
Implementations
The Commercial Operating System was engineered specifically for the PDP-8 and PDP-11 series of hardware.
COS-310
Designed for the PDP-8, COS-310 offered an operating platform tailored for DIBOL. This system was marketed as a complete package that included a desk, a VT52 Video Display Terminal, and two eight-inch floppy disk drives, with an option to add 2.5 MB removable hard drives. COS-310 was also one of the operating systems available on the DECmate II.
COS-350
The COS-350 version supported the PDP-11 port of DIBOL and became a key component for vendors providing turnkey software products.
Prior to COS-350, there was a single-user, batch-oriented version for the PDP 11/05; approximately four years later, a multi-user COS designed for the PDP 11/10 was introduced. The more robust PDP-11/34 variant offered enhanced configurability and greater expansion capabilities.