Compaq High Performance Systems Division

Compaq's Tru64 UNIX evolutionary reliability and availability architecture and design are a testament that Compaq is committed to continuing to solve your availability and performance needs by providing high availability leadership solutions based on TruCluster Server technology. No matter how reliable your single system, a clustered configuration can keep your business running uninterrupted. And TruCluster Server software enables higher service levels with maximum availability while reducing your management costs by managing all systems in the cluster as one single system. No other UNIX vendor can offer you this level of availability and ease of management at the same time.
In addition, building on Compaq's clustering leadership and our unique partnership with Oracle, Compaq is offering customers a highly available database environment in which the complexity normally associated with clustered solutions has been eliminated. These pre-bundled systems are easy to install and manage with pre-configured, tested AlphaServer systems. The recently announced Compaq Database Utility also offers Tru64 UNIX customers the capability to dynamically expand their Oracle9i Real Application Clusters database – increasing database performance and size, including disk space and number of systems, without taking the database offline.

Operating system

An operating system is the software component of a computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the resources of the computer. The operating system (OS) acts as a host for application programs that are run on the machine. As a host, one of the purposes of an operating system is to handle the details of the operation of the hardware. This relieves application programs from having to manage these details and makes it easier to write applications. Almost all computers, including hand-held computers, desktop computers, supercomputers, and even modern video game consoles, use an operating system of some type. See also Computer systems architecture.

Operating systems offer a number of services to application programs and users. Applications access these services through application programming interfaces (APIs) or system calls. By invoking these interfaces, the application can request a service from the operating system, pass parameters, and receive the results of the operation. Users may also interact with the operating system by typing commands or using a graphical user interface (GUI, commonly pronounced “guoey”). For hand-held and desktop computers, the GUI is generally considered part of the operating system. For large multiuser systems, the GUI is generally implemented as an application program that runs outside the operating system. See also Computer programming; Human-computer interaction.

Common contemporary operating systems include Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, AmigaOS, Linux and Solaris. Microsoft Windows has a significant majority of market share in the desktop and notebook computer markets, while the server and embedded device markets are split amongst several operating systems. ^{[1] [2]}

The designs of the aforementioned operating systems, including Windows (especially Windows NT), were inspired by, directly inherited from, or are very similar to the UNIX operating system. UNIX was developed at Bell Labs beginning in the late 1960s and spawned the development of numerous free and proprietary operating systems.

Subnotebook

A subnotebook (or ultraportable computer) is a small and lightweight portable computer, with most of the features of a standard laptop computer but smaller. The term is often applied to systems that run full versions of desktop operating systems such as Windows or Linux, rather than specialized software such as Windows CE, Palm OS or Internet Tablet OS. The term "ultra-mobile PC" (UMPC) is also frequently used to refer to such machines, although this also refers to a small form-factor tablet PC platform.

Subnotebooks are smaller than laptops but larger than handheld computers and UMPCs. They often have screens, usually measuring 10.6 inches (26.92cm) to 13.3 inches (33.78cm), and a weight less than 1 kg up to about 2 kg; as opposed to full-size laptops with 14.1 (35.81cm) to 15.4 inches (39.12cm) screens and a weight of 2 kg or more. The savings in size and weight are usually achieved partly by omitting ports or having removable media/optical drives; subnotebooks are often paired with docking stations to compensate.

Subnotebooks have been something of a niche computing product and have rarely sold in large numbers until the 2007 introduction of the Asus Eee PC and the OLPC XO-1^[1], known as ultra low-cost PC (ULPC or ULCPC), which are inexpensive in comparison to both existing machines in that form factor, and computers in general.