Submitted by Since QNX – understandably – lost any and all interest in general-purpose computing, I kind of lost track where it was going (I used to have such fun with it – yup, 2004, before I even joined OSAlert). Apparently, they just released version 6.5 SP1. It contains optimised memory performance, better networking and USB stacks, improved file system performance, and more. I’m sure these are all things we’ll see trickle down to BlackBerry OS 10.
Wait a minute. We still run QNX4.
aaah, memories. I used to use QNX4 boot floppies on a 386… I miss that box.
That famous Demo disk they made available in the late 90s (’97, I think) changed the way I looked at OSes for a long time. I too ran QNX on a 40mhz 386 and always hoped they hit the consumer market more strongly. QNX is really the main reason I still follow Blackberry.
I think QNX is too widely used in the industry to disappear, even if Blackberry goes down, some other company will pick it up.
I used to have a copy of that disk. I think I still might somewhere. Time to dig it out!!
http://qnx.projektas.lt/qnxdemo/qnx_demo_disk.htm nowadays, typically most likely faster than digging out any floppy
PS. Curious, IOS is based on QNX.
Edited 2012-08-11 19:35 UTC
edit: Ah, IOS and not iOS. Automatic mental typo filtering isn’t always a good thing.
Which makes it a good point: In the worst case, cisco will probably buy QNX just to keep it going. Not the best of fates, but probably better than outright dying.
Edited 2012-08-13 10:37 UTC
Well, it’s also the fault of the company that basically takes any name they like, cleans up only after the fact (like it was also with the iPhone IIRC)
And I imagine that, for codebase of such importance (used not only in a fairly crucial line of ~switches, also automotive usage or with… Canadian nuclear reactors), buying of QNX per se wouldn’t even be required – the code is certainly in escrow, with arrangements made a long time ago for ownership transfer, were something to happen with its parent company.
One thing that has already trickled down from BlackBerry10 is first class support for Qt (4 and 5).
The people working on Qt-on-QNX are even committed to becoming a Tier 1 platform for Qt, i.e. officially on the same level as Windows, Linux and OS X.