"Mac OS 8-compatible operating system"

CobraBoy! (tbyars@earthlink.net)
Fri, 26 Sep 1997 08:05:12 -0700


Several readers have written in about a news item (in German) on the
German newsticker Heise Verlag,

which indicates that when German Developoment firm Omega ran into
dead-ends in its efforts to increase

security in the Mac OS, it decided to work on the problem "the other
way around" -- and began

development of its own Mac OS 8-compatible operating system. Here's a
translation of the news item:

Stollenberg, Germany, based software development firm Omega is
developing a MacOS8-compatible

operating system that complies to the Unites States B2 security
classification.

COS (Crypto Operating System) was intended to make MacOS more secure,
President Manfred Schmitz

said, but when it turned out to be too complicated, they decided to it
"the other way around". The result is

a mulltiprocessor client/server operating system with "real"
preemptive multitasking, B2 security

classification, <bold><underline>clustering</underline></bold> and a
custom QuickTime implementation. It is said that COS is four times
faster

than the Original MacOS, takes 10 to 15 megs of hard disk space, 500 K
of RAM, and runs on 68030- to

PowerMacs.

Omega plans to distribute COS as DM 169.- ( $100) "shareware". The
first public presentation will be

given at MacWorld Expo Dusseldorf in November.

How Omega plans to deliver an OS with any kind of interface familiar
to Mac users without treading on

Apple copyrights and patents isn't known, but the possibilities are
fascinating, if they do indeed have an

OS that will run Mac OS apps so quickly and in so little RAM. If you
have any information on this, or are

able to confirm any of the details, let us know!

-

Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner.

-Toa Te Ching

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