Parts/Operating systems/SUNMOS
Operating systems · SUNMOS · 1993
SUNMOS
Lightweight kernel under 256KB written at Sandia and UNM after Intel’s OSF/1 failed to scale. Its successor PUMA became Cougar on ASCI Red.
Why this part
Under 256KB, written at Sandia and the University of New Mexico after Intel's OSF/1 proved unable to scale to the Paragon's 3,680 nodes. A lightweight kernel does almost nothing: no virtual memory management to speak of, no general-purpose scheduler, just enough to launch a process and move messages with the lowest overhead the hardware allows. SUNMOS became PUMA, PUMA became Cougar, and Cougar ran ASCI Red three years later on the same site. That lineage is a supply chain with no vendor in it at all, since the operator wrote its own software stack rather than buying one.
Systems using this part
- Systems
- 1
- Rmax underneath
- 143.4 GFlop/s
- Units recorded
- -
| System | Role | Country | Units | System Rmax | Supplied by | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Paragon XP/S 140 1993 | Operating system | USA | - | 143.4 GFlop/s | Sandia National Laboratories | #1 → |
“Units recorded” sums only the edges where a public source states a quantity. It is a floor, not a total, and should never be read as installed base.