Feb. 13 The Apollo Computer and AEGIS

byjghwebbrand

12.6K followers

3 years ago

On this date in computer history, Apollo Computer becomes an incorporated entity in 1980 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts.

They had their hay day in history from 1980 to 1987 manufacturing network workstations used in engineering with 1986 being their best sales year ever exceeding quarterly sales of $100 million worldwide. At the end of 1987, Apollo ranked third in market share after Digital Equipment Corporation and Sun, but ahead of Hewlett-Packard and IBM. By 1989 the Hewlett-Packard Company acquired Apollo in a $476 million deal.

Their biggest customers back then were Meritor Graphics (known for electronic design), General Motors, Ford, Chryler, Chicago Research and Trading (Options and Futures) and Boeing.

So Why Should You Care?

Though the Apollo Company no longer exists, their impact does. They revolted against the excessive cost of single CPU Unix licenses and created their own operating system, AEGIS. By the way, Wealthy Affiliate used servers run on the UNIX operating system. The Amazon servers run on LINUX.

Besides saving license cost, Aegis offered faster file access and a richer command set for troubleshooting, especially when processes were unexpectedly locking files requested by the system.

The Aegis dual 68000 processor configuration was more advanced than their competition when it came to providing automatic page switching. One processor acted as the main processor. When page switching was to occur, it halted its activity waiting for the other processor to execute the OS and program instructions. When done the main processor would go back to work.

So That Was In The Late 1980s, So Who Uses AEGIS Today?

If You Are A Gamer Or An Affiliate Marketer In This Niche, Listen Up.

AEGIS is found in high performing gaming computers today. Its operating system was written in Pascal which is still used today. If your gamin computer features coreTM-i7-6700 processors you will see unbelievable speed. Top end gaming computers often feature i7 processors with up to 8 cores.

Behind The Scenes in the 1980’s

Computer companies began focusing more and more on personal computers. Doing so meant the operating system had to exist on individual computers. This is when AEGIS added another layer of software on its OS for personal computers known as DOS (Disk Operating System), a disk-based, single tasking, single user, non-graphical command line operating system. Its function was to oversee the operation of the system by providing support for executing programs, controlling I/O devices, handling errors, and providing the user interface.

IBM was actively pursuing the personal computer market as well. They approached the young Bill Gates for help. He developed the Microsoft Disk Operating System which was replaced by Windows in 2001.

So, For You Millennials, We Are Now Beginning to Speak Your Language Right?

Your personal computer is either using macOS, Microsoft Windows or Linux. These modern operating systems use a graphical user interface, or GUI, which means you are the user and your electronic device has an interface through which you can interact via visual indicator representations.

So This Is Getting Too Complicated! Time To Apply!

Yes, let’s just use our personal electronic devices and be grateful they work so we can keep growing our online business.