QNX

QNX (ˌkjuː_ˌɛn_ˈɛks or ˈkjuːnᵻks) is a commercial Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market. QNX was one of the first commercially successful microkernel operating systems. The product was originally developed in the early 1980s by Canadian company Quantum Software Systems, later renamed QNX Software Systems. it is used in a variety of devices including cars, medical devices, program logic controllers, robots, trains, and more. Gordon Bell and Dan Dodge, both students at the University of Waterloo in 1980, took a course in real-time operating systems, in which the students constructed a basic real-time microkernel and user programs. Both were convinced there was a commercial need for such a system, and moved to the high-tech planned community Kanata, Ontario, to start Quantum Software Systems that year. In 1982, the first version of QUNIX was released for the Intel 8088 CPU. In 1984, Quantum Software Systems renamed QUNIX to QNX in an effort to avoid any trademark infringement challenges. One of the first widespread uses of the QNX real-time OS (RTOS) was in the nonembedded world when it was selected as the operating system for the Ontario education system's own computer design, the Unisys ICON. Over the years QNX was used mostly for larger projects, as its 44k kernel was too large to fit inside the one-chip computers of the era. The system garnered a reputation for reliability and became used in running machinery in many industrial applications. In the late-1980s, Quantum realized that the market was rapidly moving towards the Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) model and decided to rewrite the kernel to be much more compatible at a low level. The result was QNX 4. During this time Patrick Hayden, while working as an intern, along with Robin Burgener (a full-time employee at the time), developed a new windowing system. This patented concept was developed into the embeddable graphical user interface (GUI) named the QNX Photon microGUI. QNX also provided a version of the X Window System.