StephenJacobs Stephen Jacobs is a contributing editor for Videomaker magazine. Little Microware has a rock called OS-9 in its sling as it takes on the giants in the battle to own the multimedia set-top box. 1993 2002 The Condé Nast Publications Inc. All rights reserved. Wired Digital, Inc. Sep 1994 2.09 In case you hadn't noticed, everyone's talking interactive TV these days. Product trials, broken deals, mergers, start-ups - there's a rash of ploys to make your boob tube brilliant by hooking a computer to it. To many in this country, the word computer is still wedded to images of Silicon Valley and Microsoft, the company that strides the personal computing landscape like a Goliath. Chairman Bill Gates has said Microsoft is spending a cool US$100 million a year on developing software for multimedia, interactive television, and the information superhighway. The popular wisdom says that what Bill wants, Bill gets. Yet some of the hottest developments in software for interactive television are happening nowhere near Silicon Valley; they're happening thousands of miles away in the Midwest. Des Moines, Iowa, is not the city that most of us would pick as the site of a burgeoning industry revolution. But then, Des Moines surprises. Sure, it's a small Midwest town surrounded by flat and well-farmed land, but that's not all there is to it. There's a Thai restaurant whose zillion-page beer list boasts brews from all over the world. There's a monumental modern Civic Center whose concert hall hosts world-class guitarists. And there's Microware Systems Corporation, a 200-employee, privately held corporation that makes an operating system called OS-9. Microware is headquartered in a 25,000-square-foot building just down the road from the offices of the National Pork Producer's Council. So far, it may not sound like anything to get excited about. OS-9 was created to control manufacturing and robotics applications. The latest addition to its product line, Digital Audio Video Interactive Decoder (DAVID), is a version of OS-9 for set-top terminals, the cable decoder boxes of interactive television. DAVID is the program that runs "under the hood," the skeleton around which user interfaces will be built by manufacturers of the terminals. It must be a pretty impressive set of bones - it's been licensed to 15 manufacturers of set-top terminals for interactive television, including IBM, Philips, Zenith Corporation, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Kyocera, GoldStar, Samsung, Adaptive MicroWare, Divicom, and EURODEC. By the time you read this, more will be on board. Oracle's media servers will communicate with these DAVID-based set-top boxes in Bell Atlantic interactive television trials in New Jersey and Northern Virginia. (A groundbreaking Federal Communications Commission decision in June cleared the way for Bell Atlantic to compete with cable in providing video programming in Tom's River, New Jersey.) Other announced interactive TV trials that are using DAVID include Nynex's Manhattan and Rhode Island trials; Cox Communications's trial in Omaha, Nebraska; Telecom Australia's system; and Hong Kong Telecom's system. Though Microware's operating system was developed for manufacturing and process control, it also has been used in multimedia for some time. DAVID has its roots in the operating systems for Tandy's Color Computer 3 and Philips CD-I, which are versions of OS-9 with platform-specific modules. Even so, conventional wisdom puts a small, relatively unknown software company at a disadvantage against a major player like Microsoft. Predictably, Microware President Ken Kaplan doesn't see it that way. "I don't know what other people think, but I just don't think Microsoft's gonna be a player. I just think it's too late. We've been working on this for two, three years. We've got real product. By the time they figure out how to put Windows on a set-top box, we'll have a couple of million boxes out there and working. At least that's the plan," says Kaplan. Since 1977, Microware has been developing ROMable (i.e., small enough to fit in the Read Only Memory chips on a system's motherboard) real-time operating systems, and doing quite well, thank you. Microware began when, as Drake University students, Ken Kaplan and Larry Crane (vice president of advanced research) got a grant from the National Science Foundation to write software for first-generation microprocessors. They started with the Motorola 6800 - the precursor to the 68000 series of CPUs that would drive the Macintosh. This work led them to develop RT/68, a small, efficient multitasking operating system for industrial applications. Kaplan and Crane founded Microware to develop and sell RT/68, putting a small ad in Byte magazine. Orders began rolling in from around the world. Physicist Rudolf Keil at the University of Heidelberg used RT/68 to control lasers for physics research. More than an early user, Keil was one of the first Microware customers to begin working with the company. He ended up leaving the university to become Microware's German distributor. Motorola was so pleased with RT/68 that in 1978 the company asked Microware to develop a Basic language for the 6809 processor, the bridge chip between the 6800 and Motorola's popular 68000 series. Microware began developing the Basic and an operating system to go with it. That was the beginning of OS-9. Kaplan and his team modeled OS-9's I/O and process handling after those in Unix, which at the time was a relatively unknown operating system. Microware's decision to use Unix as a model may have been a gamble then, but it has proved to be a fortuitous choice: Unix has since grown to become the lingua franca of the Internet. As a result, the OS-9 of a decade ago was more ready for the information superhighway than many other operating systems are today. OS-9 is popular in industrial applications worldwide for robotics, telecommunications, or any other type of application that requires a small, on-board operating system to handle a large number of processes extremely quickly. The head of Microware's French office, Nick Rainey, ticked off several applications that have made OS-9 popular in Europe: "CERN, the particle accelerator; the French pay-phone systems that now run off 'smart cards' - that's OS-9; British Telecom; subway systems. I had a big surprise when I went to open the Russian office. They took me over to see the space flight simulators, and they'd been running the whole system off a version of OS-9 that they'd bootlegged from some Germans somewhere. They were really glad to see us!" OS-9 made early inroads in Japan, when Fujitsu made 6809-based personal, multitasking computers for the Japanese market. In the US, OS-9 can be found in NASA simulators as well. Flight simulators, maintenance, and testing equipment for McDonnell-Douglas, Lockheed, and Boeing also run off of OS-9. Microware's sales are pretty well divided into thirds between the US, Europe, and the Pacific Rim.

Microware seemed to burst into public view from nowhere when Bell Atlantic announced specifications for its interactive services in January 1994. The specs could only be met by terminals running DAVID. This was a surprise, as Bell Atlantic had released a preliminary set of specs several months before that appeared to be based on Modular Windows, Microsoft's now-dead operating system for multimedia. In reaction to the Bell Atlantic announcement, the January 18 Wall Street Journal ran a feature story about Microware. Since then, Kaplan and company have been signing set-top box contracts right and left. Modular Windows is kind of a mystery. Apparently, it was to have been a smaller, faster, trimmer version of the Windows operating system for set-top boxes. It has been replaced by a new system from Microsoft called Tiger. The Wall Street Journal piece left the impression that Bell Atlantic ran DAVID and Modular Windows in competition and chose Microware over Microsoft. Not true, says Microware's multimedia marketing manager Arthur Orduna. "We didn't go head-to-head with Modular Windows because there was nothing to go head-to-head with." Orduna says Bell Atlantic asked Microware to assemble an OS-9 comparison chart, something that would list the specifications and merits of several different operating systems. Microware was unable to obtain the information it needed on Modular Windows. "First I called Microsoft directly, and all I could get was 'Give us your number and we'll call you back.' Then we asked a friend of ours to call Microsoft as a developer and ask about Modular Windows, the normal sort of play-acting shit we get from our competitors. What our friend got for an answer was 'Well ... give us all the specs and information about the system you're developing and we'll call you back.' " Microware struggled to find someone who knew or would talk about Modular Windows. They finally found a source at Tandy, where Modular Windows was being used in the development of a home entertainment system prototype. (Microsoft wouldn't talk about it with Wired, either, but at press time has just announced its Tiger database for interactive set-top boxes.) "We talked to this technician who worked on their interactive project," says Orduna. "He really didn't have specs either, but he bitched and bitched about the integration process and how difficult it was to implement Modular Windows on a consumer platform. So I called back the project manager at Bell Atlantic and told him 'I'm faxing you back this OS-9 comparison chart, and I really have to apologize beforehand for the gaping holes in there on the Modular Windows part because we don't know them. But, we have the number of this engineer you can call, and he can give you some insight on what it's like to integrate Mod Windows on a consumer platform.' A couple days later they said, 'OK, you're it.' " As a corporate entity, Bell Atlantic didn't make an agreement with Microware or specify DAVID as the operating system for its set-top terminals. It merely published a set of specifications that only DAVID could meet. No deal has been cut between the two companies, allowing each to keep its freedom and avoiding any accusations of monopolistic or restrictive behavior on the part of Bell Atlantic.

CERN and French smart cards may sound far removed from the world of home entertainment systems, but Microware got its foot in that door a long time ago. The company has been slowly building a presence in consumer electronics since the early '80s. That's when Tandy used OS-9 in the Radio Shack Color Computer, fondly remembered by some as the CoCo 3. "We did the original operating system for the Tandy Color Computer," says Kaplan. "We did a windowing GUI for that called Multiview. So we always thought that OS-9 would be a good operating system for consumers. No one back in those days was thinking about multimedia." What they were thinking about was game machines. In the mid-1980s Microsoft announced MSX (Microsoft Extended Basic), a product that was supposed to be an industry standard for computer/game machines like the Commodore 64 and the Atari 800. Microsoft worked with ASCII Corp. in Japan to push the standard to a consortium of manufacturers including Sony, Matsushita, and Yamaha. The plan was to introduce it in Japan and then bring the systems to the states. It was not successful. In January 1986 Microsoft announced its long-term commitment to CD-ROM development. By February 1986 Microsoft and ASCII Corp. had dissolved their relationship. Meanwhile, Microware's work for Tandy brought the firm to the attention of Philips. Philips had made an early video game system called the Magnavox Odyssey and had asked Microware to collaborate on a new product - originally envisioned as a type of rack-mountable game system. (It eventually evolved into CD-I.) After evaluating systems from 60 other companies, Philips decided to ask Microware to develop CD-I's CD-RTOS, the operating system in every Philips CD-I System. Microware got the CD-I contract in January 1986, and in the summer of 1986 Kaplan got a phone call from Silicon Valley. Bill Gates wanted to buy the company. Kaplan didn't want to sell but was willing to talk about joint ventures. Gates wasn't. The negotiations ended there before they had started, and Gates's picture earned a place of honor on Kaplan's dart board. In the meantime, to support CD-I development, Microware formed two joint ventures in the interactive media field. The first is called OptImage. "Both Philips and Microware had to develop software and hardware to make discs," says Kaplan. "It's a chicken-and-egg problem. We needed to make discs to test our software, to test the prototypes. It wouldn't be a core business for either Philips or Microware, but somebody had to do it." Another Microware joint venture called MicroMall has been running CD-I-based shopping and information kiosks in several areas, including Chicago, as a preliminary step in designing shopping services for interactive television. The digital interactive "catalogs" at the heart of the systems use digital stills, audio, and video to display items from J C Penney, Land's End, and others.

While he was working with Philips on CD-I, Kaplan began hearing about another form of future multimedia delivery. "Not long after we got involved with CD-I and understood digital audio and digital video, it became clear that ultimately audio and video could be delivered by a network," says Kaplan. "Maybe it would be even better to deliver it via a network rather than via optical disk, but the transmission technology and the digital video compression weren't quite there yet. I remember back in '86 the Philips engineers said, 'There's a way to do it; we can't make the silicon yet, but in four or five years we will.' So it was known back then that it was doable." OS-9's popularity in the telephone-switching world had landed Microware on an advisory committee for Bell Atlantic. At about the same time that Philips was beginning to talk about digital video, the phone companies were talking about it as well. Bell Atlantic was starting to talk about sending digital video over copper wires. Bell Atlantic asked Microware if the OS-9 inventor wanted to participate in some of the research. About two years ago, Microware realized that if it combined OS-9 modules written for phone switching and telecommunications networking with the modules written for digital audio and video, they had all the parts of an operating system for set-top terminals. Soon after that, DAVID was born.

Recently, the folks from Microware have found themselves at a lot of trade shows to show off DAVID, either on their own or sharing booths with Oracle or set-top terminal manufacturers. If you walked into these booths, you'd see a demonstration of digital video on demand being driven by a DAVID set-top box talking to a video server. Additional DAVID networking protocols on the set-top box and the server would be handling the communications between the server's operating system and the DAVID system in the set-top terminal. Of course, all this is transparent to you. All you see is the interface designed by the set-top box manufacturer and the video delivered by the server. At a recent demonstration in Des Moines, Microware used a Kyocera prototype set-top terminal. About the size of a standard cable decoder, the box came with one of those massive, 3,000-button multiremotes that are becoming standard in the consumer electronics industry. What wasn't standard were the cursor-control-style keys in one section of the remote. Those were the ones that drove the interactive part of the terminal. The video was delivered by one of Microware's prototyping servers, through T1 lines to the local phone company offices several miles away in downtown Des Moines. The remote could perform VCR-type functions on the digitized video quickly and with no sync problems. The system responded instantly, much faster than a VCR. The only downside was the control of the "arrow pointer" via the remote: infrared doesn't seem to be the most effective communications channel between controller and terminal, and scrolling up and down a screen is agonizing.

Since January there's been a lot of press about Microsoft's plans for interactive TV. From what's being said, Microsoft's model of a delivery system is similar to Microware's. "We're looking at a switching broadband network," says Karl Buhl, marketing manager in advanced consumer technology for Microsoft. "We'd have four parts to the system: Tiger [Microsoft's current solution] continuous switching at the head end, coax from the head end to the home, a set-top terminal in the home, and a Microsoft software package running the system." Conventional wisdom says Tiger will blow everything else away. Ken Kaplan doesn't buy it. "Microsoft is coming into this business from a standing start. No one wants them in this business anyway. They're not welcome." "If Ken thinks we're not wanted here in the industry he should talk with TCI," Buhl counters. He says TCI's trials with Microsoft's Tiger technology will begin in Seattle at the end of the year. (See Wired's interview with TCI head John Malone, Wired 2.07) Obviously, Kaplan thinks it's not too early to count Microsoft out. "Bill Gates says he's been spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on this business," Kaplan reasons. "Do you know what kind of return he's got to get on that investment? There isn't that much money in set-top-box software, sorry. Microsoft wants to get a piece of everything, probably per transaction. The market can't afford that. It can't afford Microsoft, and those in the industry don't want monopolists dominating their business. Not to mention that Microsoft doesn't have a clue about this business. It's a TV-set business, not a computer business. "This happened to them once before. They missed the boat totally on networking. That's why Novell took off. Bill didn't figure it out, he didn't see it coming. He didn't approach it right, and Novell came in and ate his lunch." According to Microware's Orduna, DAVID was not just a lucky acronym choice. While the name's been trademarked, the logo hasn't been finalized. The first version of the DAVID logo followed the biblical metaphor right down to a sling. That got a thumbs down as taking the joke a bit too far. But if Microware really wants to get Microsoft's goat, maybe it'll choose a logo inspired by Novell.

Why do set-top terminal companies want a robotics operating system for interactive television? Most personal computing operating systems are large and relatively slow. They still don't effectively multitask or run more than one application at a time. They take up a lot of hard-drive space and memory. The multitasking that systems like Windows and System 7 do is "cooperative." Different applications rarely stop or pause each other; they wait for breaks in CPU usage to have the computer change horses between them without shutting each other down. These systems are almost polite. They have response times of half a second at best. In robotics or manufacturing systems, operating system needs differ. The scope of the operating system doesn't need to be as broad as that of a computer operating system, and often it must be able to fit into the system memory, right on the circuit board. True multitasking is vital. Different applications, or tasks, need to be able to interrupt each other, and quickly. A response time of half a second is much too slow. "If a robot arm has reached its position, you probably need to tell it to do something immediately," says Peter Dibble, a research scientist for Microware. "You can't have it just waiting around while another task clears the screen." Operating systems for set-top terminals must be compact enough not to need a lot of memory or a hard drive, in order to keep the cost of the box down. They must also be fast and multitasking. A half-second response time can give you frozen video or garbled audio. "There are a lot of things going on in a set-top box at once," says Curt Schwaderer, a principal engineer at Microware. "First, you've got a networking front end that's sending data in at 1.544 Mbits per second. While all this networking stuff is trying to deal with (all this data coming in off the) T1, you've got another piece of the operating system that's taking the data and playing a movie with it. Then there's the third, interactive part, where you press buttons on a remote control. That requires more processing going on inside the box and more networking-type data going back and forth over the serial line so that you can do things like Fast-Forward, Rewind, Stop, Go Back." OS-9 is modular so that it can fit a wide variety of needs without taking up a lot of system resources. A modular operating system allows designers to pick exactly which parts they will need. The heart of the operating system, called a kernel, fits in only 29 Kbytes of chip memory. DAVID, which is just a specific mix of OS-9, networking, and video modules, will fit all the necessary parts for a set-top terminal OS into about 256 Kbytes of memory while running true multitasking, not cooperative multitasking. Some set-top box manufacturers are waiting for the development of a video compression scheme more advanced than the current MPEG 1. Not Microware. The first DAVID set-top boxes will use systems that TCI initially passed on. "I'd rather have something that works this year and see it get better later," says Microware's Dibble. "It would be fun to be able to deliver the set-top box that would start with HDTV and go on from there, the one that wouldn't deliver anything but quadraphonic sound and wouldn't work unless you had broadband fiber. Maybe that will happen. Maybe if we're lucky we will be the people still doing it because we were the ones who delivered the relatively not-so-wonderful stuff."