Introduction to Athene

Athene is an extremely flexible, multi-platform OS environment that is designed for desktop PC's and embedded systems. It can be completely reconfigured to suit the requirements of the target system, as well as the needs of individual users. The user interface is totally rewriteable and is famous for its ability to emulate other interfaces such as the Microsoft Windows and Amiga desktop environments.

The term "multi-platform" refers to the fact that Athene runs as a virtual machine on host systems such as Linux and Windows. Free versions of Athene are available for both of those platforms. Commercial versions are also available - Athene/SNAP is an accelerated Linux desktop installation that replaces X11 Server based desktops. Athene 2004 is also available on CDROM, providing a complete operating system installation for your PC that is specially configured and tuned for running an Athene based system. If you're a hardware manufacturer, Athene can be ported to any machine or software environment if the minimum runtime requirements are met.

Athene is completely reconfigurable, allowing users and third parties to alter anything from small areas of the operating system to rebuilding its entire structure from scratch. At the same time, it allows such major changes without loss of compatibility with other Athene based systems. Ultimately this means that vendors and technology companies can create tailor-made operating systems for specific markets and hardware devices. For example, a low specification Internet box may require a minimal operating system design, solely for the purpose of Internet browsing. On the other hand, a high-end home PC needs an environment that can run multiple applications and games. Specialised systems such as computing kiosks require specific features to be turned on and others removed completely for security reasons. Because Athene is kernel independent, you can also choose an appropriate back-end for your requirements.

Athene's development environment is completely self-contained, ensuring that applications can be ported between different machine types without changes. Because the interfaces and general functionality of all applications are built using object scripts, the user may customise the interface of any application to suit his or her requirements. It is even possible to merge applications together, effectively creating hybrid software.

Other features common to all versions of Athene are a unified data model, memory protection, publicly accessible source code and a fully scalable architecture. For more detail, please refer to the User Feature List.

Athene 2004

Athene 2004 is the commercial version of Athene and is currently available from our website as an OEM CD. In both graphics and software, Athene is currently one of the fastest operating systems ever released to the public. Featuring licensed graphics technology from SciTech Software, Athene has shown a 17 - 30% faster graphics throughput rate in comparison to Microsoft Windows and X11 respectively. The system is also compiled for Pentium compatible processors only, so that it utilises the fastest available CPU instructions.

Hard disk partitioning software is included so that you can rearrange your hard drive and run Athene alongside your existing operating system. The boot-time to the login screen is typically no more than 3 - 4 seconds on modern PC hardware. Athene utilises the latest Linux based kernel and supports multi-user login and security features. Popular programs including games, web browsers and Internet chat clients are installable from the CDROM. Being Linux compatible, you can also install many free Linux programs available from the Internet.

You can order the CDROM from our online shop.

History

Athene has been in development since 1998, while the backend API - The Pandora Engine - was originally started in 1996. A preview of Athene was first released in December 2000 and the full Linux version released in July 2001. Four months later the first Windows version was made available to the public. The most recent release is the stand-alone version of Athene, initially distributed under the Athenyx brand in May 2003.

Availability

The Linux and Windows versions of Athene are available for free download from official distribution sites. Athene's development environment, the Pandora Engine SDK is also available to freeware developers at no charge. The commercial version can be purchased as a download or in CDROM format from our online shop.

Where Can I Get More Information?

This web site has all that you need. The Pandora Engine contains a large amount of programmers' material, including comprehensive manuals, original design specifications and example programs. Read the feature list for a full list of Athene's key features and watch the downloads page for source code, manuals and binary files. The Frequently Asked Questions page should also help to answer your initial questions.