Editing A2 (operating system) (section)

== History ==
A2 is a successor to [[Native Oberon]], the [[x86]] [[IBM PC compatible|PC]] version of [[Niklaus Wirth]]'s [[operating system]] [[Oberon (operating system)|Oberon]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wirth |first1=Niklaus |author1-link=Niklaus Wirth |last2=Gutknecht |first2=Jürg |author2-link=Jürg Gutknecht |date=September 1989 |title=The Oberon System |journal=Software: Practice and Experience |volume=19 |issue=9 |pages=857–893 |doi=10.1002/spe.4380190905|s2cid=44292990 }}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite book |last=Reiser |first=Martin |year=1992 |title=The Oberon System: User Guide and Programmer's Manual |publisher=[[Addison-Wesley]] |isbn=0-201-54422-9}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Wirth |first1=Niklaus |author1-link=Niklaus Wirth |last2=Gutknecht |first2=Jürg |author2-link=Jürg Gutknecht |year=1992 |title=Project Oberon: The Design of an Operating System and Compiler |publisher=Addison-Wesley |isbn=978-0201544282}} Out of print. [https://inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/ProjectOberon1992.pdf Electronic reprint.]</ref> It supports [[multiprocessing]] computers, and provides soft [[real-time computing]] operation. It is entirely written in [[Active Oberon]]. 

According to ETH Zurich’s documentation, A2's architecture supports the development of systems using active objects that operate directly on hardware, without relying on an [[Interpreter (computing)|interpreter]] or [[virtual machine]].In the Active Oberon model used by A2, active objects combine conventional object-oriented structures with independently executing threads, allowing for parallelism within the operating system. In the Active Oberon implementation, an active object may include activity of its own, and of its ancestor objects. 
[[File:Oberon A2Desktop Screen.png|thumb|The Oberon A2 desktop screen with the installer application open, along with a calendar and clock. (Using the default style)]]

The A2 system is written in a type-safe [[language]] with automatic memory management, and its design emphasizes modularity and simplicity, according to project documentation, combined with a set of [[Language primitive|primitives]] (at the level of [[programming language]] and [[runtime system]]) for synchronizing access to the internal properties of objects in competing [[Execution (computing)|execution]] contexts.

Above the [[Kernel (operating system)|kernel]] layer, A2 provides a set of modules providing unified abstractions for devices and services, such as [[file system]]s, [[user interface]]s, [[computer network]] connections, media [[codec]]s, etc.