Historical archive — 1993
Another HH&S achievement
This implementation was based on our RTCS multitasking monitor.
The late 1980s saw the rapid growth of the French Minitel service. At the time, solution providers used expensive UNIX systems with one process per X.25 virtual circuit and supported only a few dozen simultaneous calls.
One X.25 virtual circuit (VC) represented one Minitel connection.
Henri Henault, an experienced C systems programmer and instructor, designed a multitasking transaction monitor: a compact IMS-like system for OS/2 and x86 UNIX. A single process could handle between 128 and 256 X.25 virtual circuits concurrently: RTCS was born.
The same transaction-processing application could use either a Videotex or voice interface.
This deployment was an ASSEDIC voice and Videotex server:
“… connected to a central computer that checks the claimant’s record in record time—the operation rarely takes more than two minutes…”
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For the curious:
- IBM PS/2, OS/2, two 128-VC X.25 adapters, Communication Manager/2, VTAM LU6.2 APPC connection and RTCS;
- IBM PS/2, OS/2, two voice adapters, Communication Manager/2, VTAM LU6.2 APPC connection and RTCS.
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For enthusiasts:
- An implementation of Dijkstra semaphores for multithreaded programming.