BTRON

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Business TRON (BTRON), is a computer operating system with graphical user interface (GUI) built upon Central TRON ([CTRON]), itself a subproject of The Real-time Operating system Nucleus (TRON). TRON was launched in Japan in 1984 as an initiative to create a single, universal operating system with an open architecture.

BTRON nearly became the world's de-facto desktop operating system. In 1989 the Japanese company Matsushita released an Intel-based PC with the BTRON operating system. Though it only had an 80286 processor with 2 MB of RAM, the system could render color video in multiple windows. The Japanese government planned to introduce the Matsushita PC in its schools, but the United States government objected, partly at the request of Microsoft, and threatened Japan with sanctions. As an indirect result of this TRON operating systems are primarily used in small devices, and the PC operating systems market is dominated by Microsoft's Windows operating system.

[edit] External sources

Linux Insider, "The Most Popular Operating System in the World", October 15, 2003. Retrieved July 13, 2006.