SPIN (operating system)

The SPIN operating system is a research project implemented in the computer programming language Modula-3, and is an open source project. It is designed with three goals: flexibility, safety, and performance. SPIN was developed at the University of Washington.

SPIN

Developer	University of Washington
Written in	Modula-3
OS family	Mach-like[1]
Working state	Discontinued
Source model	Open source
Initial release	1994; 31 years ago (1994)
Final release	1.0 / November 1996; 28 years ago (1996-11)
Repository	www-spin.cs.washington.edu/Distro/docs/downloadInfo.html
Marketing target	Research
Available in	English
Update method	Download, compile
Platforms	IA-32
Kernel type	Microkernel[2]
Official website	www-spin.cs.washington.edu

The kernel can be extended by dynamic loading of modules which implement interfaces that represent domains. These domains are defined by Modula-3 INTERFACE. All kernel extensions are written in Modula-3 safe subset with metalanguage constructs and type safe casting system. The system also issued a special run-time extension compiler.

One set of kernel extensions provides an application programming interface (API) that emulates the Digital UNIX system call interface. This allows Unix applications to run on SPIN.^[3]