Hydra (operating system)
Encyclopedia
HYDRA was an early capability-based
, object-oriented
, microkernel
designed to support a wide range of possible operating system
s to run on top of it. HYDRA was created as part of the C.mmp
project at Carnegie-Mellon University in 1971.
HYDRA was designed to be modular and secure, and intended to be flexible enough for easy experimentation.
The system was implemented in the programming language BLISS
.
Capability-based security
Capability-based security is a concept in the design of secure computing systems, one of the existing security models. A capability is a communicable, unforgeable token of authority. It refers to a value that references an object along with an associated set of access rights...
, object-oriented
Object-oriented programming
Object-oriented programming is a programming paradigm using "objects" – data structures consisting of data fields and methods together with their interactions – to design applications and computer programs. Programming techniques may include features such as data abstraction,...
, microkernel
Microkernel
In computer science, a microkernel is the near-minimum amount of software that can provide the mechanisms needed to implement an operating system . These mechanisms include low-level address space management, thread management, and inter-process communication...
designed to support a wide range of possible 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...
s to run on top of it. HYDRA was created as part of the C.mmp
C.mmp
The C.mmp was an early MIMD multiprocessor system developed at Carnegie Mellon University by William Wulf . The notation C.mmp came from the PMS notation of Bell and Newell, where a CPU was designated as C and a variant was noted by the dot notation; mmp stood for Multi-Mini-ProcessorSixteen...
project at Carnegie-Mellon University in 1971.
HYDRA was designed to be modular and secure, and intended to be flexible enough for easy experimentation.
The system was implemented in the programming language BLISS
BLISS
BLISS is a system programming language developed at Carnegie Mellon University by W. A. Wulf, D. B. Russell, and A. N. Habermann around 1970. It was perhaps the best known systems programming language right up until C made its debut a few years later. Since then, C took off and BLISS faded into...
.