Alpha Microsystems
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alpha Microsystems is a computer company founded in 1977 by Dick Wilcox and Bob Hitchcock. The first Alpha Micro computer was based upon a microprocessor chip called WD16 from Western Digital. Later computers were based on the Motorola 68000 and later processors, though Alpha Micro swapped several addressing lines to create byte-ordering compatibility with their earlier processor. This transition involved the work of perhaps 100 people over a few years.
As Motorola stopped developing their 68000 product, Alpha Micro needed to move to another hardware platform. Teaming again with the original AMOS designer, Dick Wilcox, they started the transition to the x86 CPU family (used in common PCs). The first transition product, AMPC 5.0, was announced in 2001. While this and the next one, AMPC 6.0, also required a 68000 series CPU, the work became the foundation for AMOS 8.x. This version runs on the AMD x86 processors.
With a staff of less than a dozen this was a slow, careful transition. To assure that most older applications software written as long as 25 years ago would also run on AMOS 8.x along side more recently written applications, a custom 68000 emulator is used. This still provided about a 1000% performance increase over most older AMOS installations. To continue the transition, more and more of the monitor (kernel) directly executes x86 code. Most applications were written in AlphaBASIC and distributed as tokenized .RUN files. At first, these generally ran through the 68000 emulator. Alpha Micro can now translate those in a token file optimized to run direct x86 code. This alone makes application execution times 5 to 10 times faster.
The company's primary claim to fame was and is very inexpensive minicomputers that provided multi-user power using a proprietary operating system called AMOS (Alpha Micro Operating System). The operating system had major similarities to the operating system of the DEC PDP-11. This may not be coincidental; legend has it that the founders based their operating system on "borrowed" source code from DEC.
A major secondary claim to fame was that the hardware was well designed and seldom failed. This became a problem in that, unlike the PC market, AMOS multi-user systems generally lasted 10 to 15 years with little or zero maintenance. With such a trouble free lifespan, contacts with customers often lapsed, application designers moved to other markets or died, etc.
In the past, Alpha Micro "gave" their operating system, BASIC, ISAM, etc. as part of the hardware sale. And they generally provided patches and OS upgrades for free or at minimal cost. Gradually, Alpha Micro has been charging more and more for the software (where the real value has been) as hardware becomes more "off the shelf".
The Alpha Micro computer has never achieved mainstream name recognition, though it was and still is extremely popular in certain vertical markets, particularly medical offices and dental offices.
Today, Alpha Microsystems also offers tools that allow traditional multi-user systems, like AMOS and like UNIX, Linux, HP, large IBM mainframes, etc. to easily take full advantage of the Microsoft .NET and its Graphical User Interface. (A little like running well debugged AMOS applications on x86 machines.) Called TrueGUI(TM), and developed primarily by that same Dick Wilcox, this has the possibility of keeping both the Alpha Micro name and AMOS computers around for many more decades.
