What is the History of QNX?
QNX was created by the two founders and co-presidents of QSSL, Gordon Bell and Dan Dodge. Legend has it that the first ideas were melded during their college days at the University of Waterloo. In the early 80’s they began work on a small message passing kernel based OS that had some user interface similarities to UNIX. The prototypes were a 6809 processor board built by Dan, and an 8088 board built by Gordon. In the Early 80’s IBM released their 8088 based IBM PC, and the race was on. About 6 months after IBM’s release, Dan and Gordon made their product known with an ad in PC Magazine. They called their product QUNIX, reportedly because it was a “Quick UNIX”. They named their company Quantum Software Systems Limited. The QUNIX name lasted a year or two until they received notice from AT&T that a change would be appropriate. Always ready for a challenge, they changed the spelling to QNX without changing the pronunciation. By the time they started advertising, a third person, Syd Geraty
