Diser Corporation
| Industry | Computer hardware |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1977 |
| Founder | Niklaus Wirth |
| Headquarters | Zurich , Switzerland |
| Products | Workstation computers |
The DISER Lilith is a specialized workstation computer constructed around the Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) 2901 bit slicing processor. This system was created by a team led by Niklaus Wirth at ETH Zurich. Initiated in 1977, the project saw several hundred units in operation by 1984. The Lilith featured a portrait-oriented, high-resolution full-page cathode-ray tube display, alongside mouse input, laser printing capabilities, and networking support. Its entire software suite was developed using Modula-2, including a relational database application called Lidas.
The processor architecture of Lilith is based on a stack machine. Operating at roughly 7 MHz, it could process between one and two million instructions (M-code) per second. The original design incorporated 65,536 16-bit words of main memory, which was later expanded to 131,072 words; however, standard Modula-2 programs typically utilized only the initial memory size for storing variables.
History
The development of Lilith drew inspiration from the Xerox Alto created at Xerox PARC in 1973. During his sabbatical from 1976 to 1977 at PARC, Niklaus Wirth was unable to bring an Alto system back to Europe. Consequently, between 1978 and 1980, he engineered a new system under the company DISER (Data Image Sound Processor and Emitter Receiver System). Following a second sabbatical at PARC in 1985, Wirth designed the Oberon System. The successor to Lilith, known as Ceres, was launched in 1987.
Operating system
Medos-2 is the name of the Lilith's operating system, developed at ETH Zurich by Svend Erik Knudsen under Wirth’s supervision. This single-user, object-oriented operating system was modularly programmed in Modula-2 and aimed primarily at research applications running on the Lilith’s AMD Am2901-based hardware. Its modular and object-oriented architecture had an impact on the Soviet Kronos workstation OS Excelsior, created by the Kronos Research Group (KRG).
Soviet variants
Between 1986 and the early 1990s, engineers in the Soviet Union produced a series of printed circuit board systems and workstations called Kronos, which were modeled after Lilith’s architecture. These workstations were manufactured in limited numbers.
Mouse
The Lilith incorporated a custom-designed computer mouse, which was later adopted by Smaky computers and influenced the initial mouse designs produced by Logitech.