DX10 was a general purpose, disk based, multitasking

Computer multitasking

In computing, multitasking is a method where multiple tasks, also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. In the case of a computer with a single CPU, only one task is said to be running at any point in time, meaning that the CPU is actively executing instructions for...

 operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

 for the Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology...

 990/10, 990/10A and 990/12

TI-990

The TI-990 was a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Texas Instruments in the 1970s and 1980s. The TI-990 was a replacement for TI's earlier minicomputer systems, the TI-960 and the TI-980...

 minicomputers using the memory mapping feature. DX10 was capable of supporting a wide range of industrial and commercial applications. It has a file management system that supported sequential, relative record (random access) and key indexed files in hierarchical directory structure. The key indexed files, like those on the DX980 operating system for the TI 980 minicomputer, relied upon "B-tree

B-tree

In computer science, a B-tree is a tree data structure that keeps data sorted and allows searches, sequential access, insertions, and deletions in logarithmic time. The B-tree is a generalization of a binary search tree in that a node can have more than two children...

s". This was in the 1970s, so the size in bits of both hard disks and RAM, tended to be much smaller than in computers circa (say) 30 years later.

DX10 was designed to be interactive with multi-terminal support that supported multiple concurrent users. A batch subsystem is also available.

Real-time

Real-time computing

In computer science, real-time computing , or reactive computing, is the study of hardware and software systems that are subject to a "real-time constraint"— e.g. operational deadlines from event to system response. Real-time programs must guarantee response within strict time constraints...

 processes where also supported that allowed DX10 to be used in process control and factory automation applications. In support of this, DX10 featured preemptive multitasking with 16 task priority

Scheduling (computing)

In computer science, a scheduling is the method by which threads, processes or data flows are given access to system resources . This is usually done to load balance a system effectively or achieve a target quality of service...

 levels.

Languages supported by DX10 are Fortran

Fortran

Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...

, COBOL

COBOL

COBOL is one of the oldest programming languages. Its name is an acronym for COmmon Business-Oriented Language, defining its primary domain in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments....

, IBM RPG II, Pascal

Pascal (programming language)

Pascal is an influential imperative and procedural programming language, designed in 1968/9 and published in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth as a small and efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring.A derivative known as Object Pascal...

, BASIC

BASIC

BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....

, and a Macro Assembler

Assembly language

An assembly language is a low-level programming language for computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other programmable devices. It implements a symbolic representation of the machine codes and other constants needed to program a given CPU architecture...

. TI developed a "C

C (programming language)

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

" preprocessor which generated Pascal source code, but was very inefficient and was never made commercially available.