| TSX-Plus | |
| Developer: | S&H Computer Systems |
| Language: | English |
| Supported Platforms: | PDP-11/LSI-11 |
| License: | Proprietary |
TSX-Plus is a multi-user operating system for the PDP-11/LSI-11 series of computers. It was developed by S&H Computer Systems, Inc. and is based on DEC's RT-11 single-user real-time operating system (TSX-Plus installs on top of RT-11).
The system is highly configurable and tunable.
Due to the constraints of the memory management system in the PDP-11/LSI-11, the entire operating system core must occupy no more than 40 kibibytes of memory, out of a maximum possible 4 mebibytes of physical memory that can actually be installed in those machines (mandated by the 22-bit address space). The strength of TSX-Plus is to simultaneously provide to multiple users the services of DEC's single-user RT-11.[1] Depending on which PDP-11 model and the amount of memory, the system could support a minimum of 12 users[2] (14-18 users on a 2Mb 11/73, depending on workload). A productivity feature called "virtual lines" "allows a single user to control several tasks from a single terminal."[3]
The software included a WP package named Lex-11[4] and a spreadsheet from Saturn Software. The machine slowed considerably if more than 8 students wanted to use the word-processing package at the same time. There was also a decision-table language called "D" from the NCC in Manchester which worked very well on TSX Plus.
Released in 1980, TSX-Plus was the successor to TSX, released in 1976.[2] The system was popular in the 1980s. The last version of TSX-Plus had TCP/IP support.
S&H wrote the original TSX because "Spending $25K on a computer that could only support one user bugged" (founder Harry Sanders); the outcome was the initial four-user TSX in 1976.[2]
TSX-Plus required bootstrapping RT-11 first before running TSX-Plus as a user program. Once TSX-Plus was running, it would take over complete control of the machine from RT-11. It provided true memory protection for users from other users, provided user accounts and maintained account separation on disk volumes and implemented a superset of the RT-11 EMT programmed requests. RT-11 programs generally ran, unmodified, under TSX-Plus and, in fact, most of the RT-11 utilities were used as-is under TSX-Plus. Device drivers generally required only slight modifications.