Last Updated on: 29th October 2023, 11:38 am
Web site: (not active)
Origin: United Kingdom
Category: Workstation
Desktop environment: CLI
Architecture: ARM
Based on: UNIX-like
Wikipedia: ARX_(operating_system)
Media: Install
The last version | Released: unreleased
ARX – a Mach-like operating system written in Modula-2+[3] developed by Acorn Computers Ltd. ARX is a comprehensive OS going beyond UNIX but backwards compatible is expected to be provided with a layer on top. Lightweight processes, share a common address space, amounts to little more than multiple program pointers with no mutual protection. Obviously this means that switching between such processes (called threads) is extremely fast.
ARX it has written in Modula 2 and is reputed to UNIX like. An interesting point for RISC haters is that the code compiled for the Archimedes is less than twice the size of the same code compiled for the 32016, which is very definately a CISC (Complex Instruction Set .. Computer).
Apparantly Acorn are not releasing details of the ARX operating system because they do not want to “confuse the market”. Even software houses, as a whole, have not been told about ARX. Whilst this may be just because ARX isn’t ready for release yet my paranoid brain worries about it’s price.
It was not finished in time to be used in the Acorn Archimedes range of computers, which shipped in 1987 with an operating system named Arthur, later renamed RISC OS.