Introduction to Virtual Machines (IV.)--History of virtual machines

History of virtual machines



In today's computer world, the concept of virtual machines has been used to solve many problems. From machine segmentation (IBM model), to "semi platform independent" programming language (Java model), to the development of the operating system (UNIX model and OSI model), the concept of virtual machines has proven to be a powerful tool in the process of forming modern computers. However, this concept is not always clear to everyone, and it is not used until the mid 1960s to practice.

Around 1965, IBM researchers tried to measure the actual effects of new concepts in computer science. In order to be able to measure the two properties of the machine after the new features are turned on and off, the researchers need a way to turn off the new features. These people are researchers at the IBM Yorkshire (Southeastern Virginia State town) research Center in the United States. They devised a scheme that would require the machine to be split into "smaller parts". These parts require the ability to manage their own resources so that researchers can test many different conditions in the system at the same time without changing the other "parts" of the system. They believe that the implementation of a virtual machine will work very well for this experiment.

After this experiment, IBM continued their work and eventually developed a virtual machine concept. They sell it as an operating system for a multi-user environment. Many businesses and universities use this operating system because it allows them to share the computing power and resources of the mainframe. Each user works in their own virtual machine so that they can share resources with others without affecting the work of other people. This virtual machine is now called the IBM370 System (s/370) and the IBM390 system (s/390). These machines utilize the IBM Vm/esa operating system and are classified as IBM virtual machine factions.

The implementation of this virtual machine has proved to be very powerful, because it is still being sold. The concept of virtual machines has since been used to solve many other computational problems, such as the portability of computer programs and the design of operating systems. UNIX operating system is one of the earliest implementations of the virtual machine concept to solve these problems.

The UNIX operating system originated in a paper published in 1974 by Denise Richie of Bell Labs and Ken Thompson. Their idea of Unix was quickly used on the PDP-11 computer. PDP-11 is a university-used machine. Through college graduates, this idea was quickly applied to the commercial computer field. From 1980 to 1985, the IEEE Committee on Standardization implemented the POSIX (portable operating system portable operating System) project to provide a standard for UNIX library functions. Their idea is that any software vendor can use standard library functions to write their code and dock with any UNIX system. The IEEE POSIX project team published an "Information technology portable Operating System Interface" in 1990. This sets a standard for the UNIX shell and application routines, making the UNIX application interface a formal specification that enables the UNIX process to work as a stand-alone virtual machine.

Creating a truly portable computer program is one of the problems that has plagued programmers for a long time. Or, programmers want to be able to write programs that work on any platform. The Java language created using the concept of virtual machines made the idea almost a reality in the mid 90.

However, in the 90 's, the idea of the Java programming language was not a new one. It was actually the idea of a gentleman named Bill Joy in the late 70 's. Joy wanted to integrate Mesa and C's best qualities by creating a language. But then other projects (such as Sun) were mixed in, and it took many years to realize the idea. By the early 90, Joy had become weary of large programs. In the late 90, Joy wrote a paper called "further". (Translator: Maybe the author is a bit wrong about the time here, it should be the late 80.) To be verified. In this paper, he sets out a suggestion to sun engineers that they should create an object environment based on C + +. It was also at this time that James Gosling had been working with C + + for several months on a SGML editor called "Imagination". Because Gosling was frustrated with the use of C + + in the "Imagination" project, he created the Oak programming language.

December 5, 1990, Patrick Naughton started the green project. Naughton defines this project by: "The less you do, the better" you try to achieve. In December of that year, he recruited Gosling and Mike Sheridan to help launch the project. Joy showed them "further" papers and worked for several months with C for graphics and user interface problems.

In the April 1991, The Green Project group (Naughton,gosling and Sheridan) began to target the "smart home Appliances" (smart consumer electronics). And Gosling began working hard for the Oak programming language. Gosling writes the earliest compilers in C, and Naughton,gosling and Sheridan finish the Run-time interpreter in C. The first program of Oak was born in August 1991.

By the fall of 1992, a crossover between the PDA and the remote control "*7" was ready. It was October, and they showed the system to Sun's chairman Scott McNealy. Sun then set up a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Green Project, called "the". Earlier in 1993, the Green Team heard that Time Warner (Time-warner) needed a proposal for a set-top box operating system. The person quickly moved from smart home appliances to the set-top box operating system market and submitted bids to Time Warner. Fortunately, Sun did not win the bid. (Translator: This should be an unfortunate event.) The top-box operating system continues to be studied by the. Until early 1994, they realised that set-top boxes were as flashy as smart appliances.

In 1994, as the market prospects were not seen, the person was merged by the parent company Sun. It was also at that time that they realised that the software needed on smart home appliances and set-top boxes (which are characterized by short, platform-independent, secure, and reliable) are also needed on the new web. The green team has shifted their direction for the third time, this time on the web. Patrick Naughton wrote a prototype of a browser called Webrunner. After Naughton and Jonathan Payne additions, this browser becomes hot Java. 1995, Oak renamed Java. 1995, Java First development tool Jdk1.0alpha release. Since then, there have been a number of revisions that have been released until recently JDK1.2.

Appendix: Major Historical events



About 1965 years



York's IBM Research Center gets a IBM7044 machine. They create a 7044 mirror image for each part of the system. Each mirror is called 7044/44x. This is to enable IBM to better understand the multiple programming (multiprogrammed) operating system. This is the beginning of the IBM virtual machine concept. They believe that the virtual machine is a copy of the real machine, but the memory is reduced.







1967



Djiskstra developed an operating system at the university. It consists of a series of layered virtual machines. Each layer of virtual machines abstracts different levels of the machine, and each layer is abstracted from its next layer. This is the first major genre of a virtual machine.







About 1968 years



An IBM team built an operating system in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and called it The Cambridge Surveillance System (Cambridge monitoring System,cms). CMS is an experiment of time-sharing system, and finally becomes the architecture of vm/370. VM/370 is sold as a time-sharing.







1974



Bell Labs ' Denise Ritchie and Ken Thompson have published landmark papers on Unix operating systems. Because of their work on Unix operating systems, they won the prestigious ACM Turing Award in 1984.







1980-1985



IEEE Committee on Standardization to provide a standard for UNIX library functions, start the POSIX (portable operating system, portable operating System) project.







1990



The IEEE POSIX project team published "Information Technology portable Operating system excuses (information Technology Portable Operating system Interface)". This sets a standard for the Unix shell and the application routines.







1990



December 5, 1990, Patrick Naughton launched a green project. The project attracted the participation of James Gosling and Mike Sheridan, marking the early development of Java. Java was then called Oak programming language.







1995



In the 1995, the Green Project team turned to the web and developed a prototype browser. At the same time, Oak renamed Java.







1999



May 1995, Java's first development tool Jdk1.0alpha release. Since then, there have been a number of revisions that have been released until recently JDK1.2.