The North American 701 Monitor

Although constrained by history, schedule, and hardware to triviality when compared to modem operating systems, the North American 701 Monitor was arguably the first operating system to be in operation. Installed in December 1955, the North American 701 Monitor was developed as a prototype monitor to extract more utilization from overburdened IBM 701'8 and pilot test the operating system concept prior to introduction of the General MotorslNorth American 704 monitor which was to follow. A historic separation of programmers from computer hardware combined with inadequate computer resources to establish the motivation and climate for the projected more efficient use of computer resources via a "monitor system." This paper presents an overview of the then contemporary North American Aviation operating philosophy, the IBM 701 hardware, the affected "system" software, and the resultant characteristics of the monitor system, and effect on the end user.