Games - Optimized Systems Software

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Optimized Systems Software (OSS) was a small company producing operating systems and programming languages for the Atari 8-bit and Apple II computer families. OSS is most noted for authoring Atari's BASIC and Disk Operating System (DOS) products.

History

Optimized Systems Software was formed in early 1981 by Bill Wilkinson and Mike Peters, who had purchased Atari BASIC, Atari DOS and the Atari Assembler/Editor product from Shepardson Microsystems, Inc. (SMI) who had concluded that their BASIC and DOS products were not viable. The new company enhanced the products, renaming them OS/A+ (the Disk Operating System), BASIC A+ (a disk-based language), and EASMD (a powerful assembler / editor).

OSS continued to work with Atari (who had previously contracted with SMI) on enhanced products, most of which never actually reached the market. OSS' independent products fared somewhat better, particularly the Action programming language. In January 1988, ICD and OSS merged. Later, Fine Tooned Engineering owned all of ICD 8-bit products. However, with Atari's decline in the shadow of the exploding IBM PC clone market, OSS faded from the computer market.

Atari 8-bit Products

OS/A+

Atari DOS 2.0S consisted of two portions, a memory-resident portion that facilitated access to disk files by programs, and a disk-resident portion providing menu-driven utilities to format, copy, delete, rename, and otherwise manipulate files on Atari's 810 disk drive. The menu system was too large to keep memory-resident, but the necessity to reload the menu system after every program was frustrating to many users.

OS/A+ 2.0, 2.1 was a disk-based replacement for the Atari DOS and the Apple II DOS. It replaced the menu-driven utilities with a compact command line approach similar to CP/M (and later, DOS
). The command line was small enough to remain in memory with most applications, removing the need for the dreaded post-program reload.

OS/A+ 4.1 OSS extended the successful OS/A+ product with additional capabilities for version 4, many of which were arguably ahead of their time. For example, the strict "8.3" naming scheme (eight alphanumeric characters with a three character extension) was replaced by "long" filenames, similar to the Microsoft DOS transition to VFAT in 1995.

However, unlike VFAT, OS/A+ 4.1 disks were not backward compatible with earlier systems; Atari DOS or OS/A+ 2.1 could not read disks formatted by OS/A+ 4.1, breaking backward compatibility. The memory footprint was larger as well, resulting in insufficient memory to run some popular applications.

As a result of these drawbacks, OS/A+ 4.1 did not achieve the market penetration as the earlier product.

OSS did reissue OS/A+ 4.1 for a brief period when they decided not to modify DOS XL for double-sided disk support.

DOS XL

DOS XL
was designed to replace OS/A+. Included support for single and double-density disk drives. Utilized the command-prompt of OS/A+ but also included a menu program. Featured extensions that took advantage of unused memory space in Atari XL/XE computers and OSS Super-cartridges. Included support for Indus GT Synchromesh.

Written by Paul Laughton, Mark Rose, Bill Wilkinson and Mike Peters.

Due to lack of demand and Atari working on a new version of DOS, OSS decided to halt development of DOS XL 4 and reissue OS/A+ version 4.1.

Available on disk.

BASIC A+

Atari BASIC had been designed to fit in a single 8k cartridge, with an optional second cartridge adding additional capability (the Atari 800 home computer featured two cartridge slots). However, the second cartridge was never produced.

Instead, OSS produced a disk-based product called BASIC A Plus (or BASIC A+), which was compatible with Atari BASIC but corrected several bugs and added quite a few features. Among the notable features were PRINT USING (for formatted output), trace and debug enhancements, direct DOS commands, and explicit support for the Atari computers' exceptional graphics hardware.

Because BASIC A+ had to be purchased, programs developed using its extended features could not be shared with people who did not own the interpreter.

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