[COFF] Terminology query - 'system process'?

[Derek Fawcus via COFF]

On Thu, Dec 14, 2023 at 06:29:35PM -0500, Noel Chiappa wrote:
> Interestingly, other early systems don't seem to have thought of this structuring technique.

How early does that have to be?  MP/M-1.0 (1979 spec) mentions this,
as "Resident System Processes"

    http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/digitalResearch/mpm_I/MPM_1.0_Specification_Aug79.pdf

It was a banked switching, multiuser, multitasking system for a Z80/8080.
It mentions 5 such processes.

Later versions, and the 8086 version still had them. The MP/M-86 docs mention
'Terminal Message', Clock, Echo and 'System Status' processes.  I believe the
first was spawned one per console.

(Some of the internal structures suggest it was intended to support swapping,
 but I don't know if that was implemented in terms of disk swapping)

DF