10 OSes We Left Behind 562
CWmike writes "As the tech community gears up to celebrate Unix's 40th birthday this summer, one thing is clear: People do love operating systems. They rely on them, get exasperated by them and live with their little foibles. So now that we're more than 30 years into the era of the personal computer, Computerworld writers and editors, like all technology aficionados, find ourselves with lots of memories and reactions to the OSes of yesteryear (pics galore). We have said goodbye to some of them with regret. (So long, AmigaOS!) Some of them we tossed carelessly aside. (Adios, Windows Me!) Some, we threw out with great force. (Don't let the door hit you on the way out, MS-DOS 4.0!) Today we honor a handful of the most memorable operating systems and interfaces that have graced our desktops over the years. Plus: We take a look back at 40 years since Unix was introduced."
Bastards! (Score:5, Insightful)
Amiga was more than just the OS (Score:3, Insightful)
It was great and ahead of its time, but the Amiga was a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts.
The OS plus the hardware platform of Agnus, Denise, made the Amiga special.
The OS on its own was less special, even though it was far ahead of the glorified dos shell that windows was.
That last screen shot of X (Score:4, Insightful)
The last shot in the picture gallery of X is what a lot of my Debian servers look like. I still love twm. I generally just install it and gvim on a server and it's all the gui I ever need. I simply copy the system.twmrc file to root/.twmrc, add the keyword "RandomPlacement" and change that ugly green color to midnightblue.
Once I got used to the keyboard shortcuts I find it works really well. Of course on a server I'm generally just running multiple xterms and gvim. Oh and maybe a browser or an Xman page...
If you ask me, some things never go out of style. ;-)
Re:Bastards! (Score:5, Insightful)
The Atari ST ran an awful lot of music studios in the 1980s.
DOS 5.0 (Score:3, Insightful)
IMO, DOS 5.0 was the best OS Microsoft made.
Re:OS/2 STILL multitasks better than Windoze (Score:5, Insightful)
All current OSes? Try something other than Windows, you might be surprised.
Re:OS/2 STILL multitasks better than Windoze (Score:3, Insightful)
No joke. I can't understand why intensive disk I/O, with the CPU spiking under 5%, causes windows applications to respond as if a high-priority thread were calculating PI in the background. SMS updates + on-access virus scanning make the whole OS very nearly unusable. Even though it doesn't use almost any real CPU time, if I set the priority to BELOW NORMAL everything running at NORMAL priority is immediately responsive again.
Is the OS swapping out executable code in deference to having a large data cache? That's the only case I can think of where IO should affect application performance - if it's already loaded, it should be executing while IO for another process happens in the background. Or maybe it's registry data that's swapped out. Either way, I cannot understand why my dual-core CPU at 2% usage doesn't respond to something that the user is doing.
I copy a large data file from one partition to another and Windows tells me my virtual memory is low. You're caching a huge file just in case I might want to load it again?
The worst part is when something spikes the CPU, and CTRL+ALT+DEL takes a minute or two to bring up the task manager.
Re:That last screen shot of X (Score:5, Insightful)
X on a server? Heresy I tell you.
I was waiting for that. Yes since about Etch I've decided that's OK to put a minimal X on a server. I finally decided that a graphical browser for googling solutions and multiple xterms are better then lynx and virtual terminals.
But I respect your opinion and would use a command line (80x25 of course) until death to defend your right to hold it! :-)
(and hey, no fair, I see your sig!)
Re:DOS 5.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, the many hours configuring himem ... the multiple memory manager profiles, the keeping straight of incompatibilities between extended and expanded memory, finding the settings that would work with Wing Commander, changing them to work with Star Trek 25th Anniverary ... those were the days.
The days of grinding awfulness, but days, none the less. It taught me a whole lot about how DOS did business, that's for sure.
One more (recent) Addition to the list (Score:5, Insightful)
RIP PalmOS [slashdot.org]
Re:That last screen shot of X (Score:3, Insightful)
If you ask me, some things never go out of style. ;-)
No, it just means you are aesthetically-challenged. twm is just plain ugly. If I were going to use something with minimal footprint, I'd at least want something good to look at such as wm2, ratpoison, or blackbox/fluxbox/openbox
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I've used it forever, I know how to customize it to my liking in five minutes or less and, as I mentioned, I am very familiar with the keyboard use in twm. Could I learn the others if I needed to? Sure, but I'm a function before fashion kind of guy anyway so I don't bother.
Now. Do you need a hug?
There is a slight Mac head skew here... (Score:5, Insightful)
In preemptive multitasking, the OS gives each application running a time-slice to do their thing and then, typically, takes control and gives the next app it's turn. This means you can put any program you want in the background and it will keep on running. We take this for granted today, but prior to 1995, most users never had this luxury. Amiga was probably the earliest OS to go sort of mainstream that had preemptive multitasking.
The article says:
"It wasn't until the late 1990s that Windows NT, OS/2 and the Mac OS were able to multitask as well -- and they required vast hardware resources to do it."
Wrong. Windows95 had full preemptive multitasking. It didn't have protected memory. That feature would stay in the NT stream until XP. However, mainstream MS users enjoyed preemptive multitasking from 1995 on.
MacOS, on the other hand, never had preemptive multitasking. Later versions had cooperative multitasking which relied on programs being specially written to support it. However, just one app running without that support was all it took to bring your Mac to a screeching halt. The late 90's were a horrible time to be a Mac user, and Apple's market share declined sharply during this period because of how primitive the last versions of MacOS were compared to everything else on the market. After the return of Jobs in the late 90's, Apple started to turn around by making flashy hardware, colored iMac's, those god-awful puck-mice, etc.. It wasn't until OSX came along that Apple was able to attract (at least some) users more interested in working on their macs than in how they looked.
Re:Amiga was more than just the OS (Score:5, Insightful)
The hardware was OK by 1991 when it finally got the ability to display 8 bit color with AGA without cheating (yes, before that ECS/OCS Amiga's could only do 32 colours in low res, 16 in high res). Even when Commodore shut down the Amiga could only do 8 bit audio (it was high quality actually, but still only 8 bits). The way the Amiga video chips worked it was neat for platform games, side scrolling games and 2d/3d (animated) video effects and thats about it. Couldn't even do chunky video modes (without chunky 2 planar software routines) which were all the rage when Doom came out. Oh and the independent displays which allowed you to page through them like a notebook (best way I can describe it). Even the built in CIA (complex interface adapter) could only support 19.2k serial speed - 56.6k if you had an AGA machine with an 040. The hardware was OK, but getting dated - even on my A4000 when I got it new in 92.
The OS was state of the art though - I ran a bbs on a program called CNet [cnetbbs.net] connected to serial.device. Added another modem to some 4 port serial board called uart.device. Then the internet came along - ran the BBS over the net for a while on a driver called telser.device (it was a telnet modem emulator) - all without ANY modification to the Cnet software what-so-ever and it was cake to setup.
The OS lacked memory protection and was flakey if processes got out of hand (even then - I do remember using it for hours on end without issues) - still even if it crashed it took 2 seconds to boot - even if I had well over 50+ user started processes in user-startup.
Don't be fooled though - the real star of the show was the OS, and when I saw it (OS 4) demo'd on a modern machine using commodity hardware it was just as wonderful.
It wasn't a glorified ms-dos shell - it had real driver support, the OS supported windows, multi-tasking, libraries, it had an SDK and window resizing and scaling (automatically - unlike the Mac at the time) as a few of the hundreds of features all without Workbench (which is the GUI shell pictured in the article).
>> someone who used an Amiga for well over 8 years.
Re:Bastards! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The list is pretty bad. (Score:3, Insightful)
I only ever owned one device that ran EPOC16, but it did manage to run a multitasking graphical environment on that device, with a 3.84MHz 8086-compatible and 256KB of RAM. The RAM was also used as a RAM disk for storing files.
Re:Bastards! (Score:2, Insightful)
Anybody else find the following funny? No damn Registry [...] Delete the folder and a few library files ... Same problem as everything else.
Re:Bastards! (Score:5, Insightful)
Thus demonstrating that Apple don't always innovate, they copy good ideas too.
Apple ][ OSes (Score:3, Insightful)
We have the Amiga OS, ok.
We have Commodore OSes, ok, if you must.
We have TRSDOS, ok, for the few who used it.
Why no DOS 3.3 or ProDos?
Re:Can you call X really forgotten? (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the saddest losses was A/UX, the first UNIX to be suitable for the home user. If Apple had kept developing it after the PowerPC switch then the current OS landscape might be very different. The same is true of Xenix. It's strange to think that both Apple and Microsoft used to sell UNIX systems way back in the '80s.
Amiga and DOS (Score:3, Insightful)
The worst thing about ST fanboys was that they distracted Commodore (a company not very bright to begin with) from the real enemy, the PC. Atari's design sucked from the get go and it was never going to lead anywhere. From the first day of launch the Amiga should have went after the PC market and left ST users behind to rot.
Actually the Amiga could run MS/PC DOS, as well as the Mac OS. Of course it required a third party board to run DOS and a board as well as Mac memory chips to run Mac OS. I was amazed the first tyme I saw an Amiga running Workbench, Mac software, and Windows at the same tyme.
I think the problem is more than just what you say though it's part of it. Commodore sucked at marketing the Amiga period. I didn't see the Escom deal as any better, but when Gateway bought it I was hoping they'd resurrect the Amiga.
Falcon
Re:Bastards! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The list is pretty bad. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, and then you'll list about 90 OSes that most people haven't heard of or don't care about. The 10 that the article has listed (actually 9 since X Window isn't an OS) most computing people have heard of and know about in passing at least.
Re:There is a slight Mac head skew here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus, Windows95 was still a DOS shell.
Windows 95 was a LOT more than "a DOS shell". It handled hardware drivers, memory management, CPU scheduling, user interaction, provided APIs, etc, etc. In fact, it did everything any textbook would consider to define an OS.
Re:Bastards! (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>Win95 shouldn't be on there because it was essentially more of the same crap that preceeded it.
I disagree. Windows 95 was a major step forward in the IBM PC world. It was their first mouse/icon-based OS that was not a pile of shit. Yes, I'm calling Windows 1, 2 and 3 piles of manure. But Windows 95 was the first time I could sit in front of a PC without grinding my teeth and wishing I was back home on either my Mac or my Amiga.
If I recall correctly Windows 95 was also the first PC OS that made installing hardware easy, rather than a 10 hour chore. It other words it made the PC like a 1990-era Mac.
Re:Bastards! (Score:5, Insightful)
None of those old Amiga demos look impressive today, because the PCs have caught-up in power and ability, but if you had seen those demos back in 1988 you would have had the same reaction I did - mouth dropping open followed by "wow" followed by "Mom and dad I want one".
At that same time period, Macs were graphical but still black-and-white, IBM PCs were plain-text screens that went "beep", and Commodore 64s had decent music but only 16 ugly colors. People didn't realize it in 1985, but the Amiga was the first multimedia computer - you could watch or produce both music and video, like seaQuest and Babylon 5 and the Lion King. ----- Or games. Owning an Amiga for gaming was like owning a Sega Genesis back when most people were still playing primitive 8-bit Ataris or NESes.
Re:OS/2 STILL multitasks better than Windoze (Score:5, Insightful)
Once the key was pressed we'd take a large but gentle step away from the machine so as to not inadvertently move the mouse while it was "working"
Half an hour later we'd return carefully to the room to see if the CD light was still on.
Temperamental semi-Operating System. Attempting any task while a write was in progress yielded a coffee mat.
Re:Bastards! (Score:3, Insightful)
> I disagree. Windows 95 was a major step forward in the IBM PC world. It was their first mouse/icon-based OS that was not a pile of shit.
I disagree that it was anything more than a pile of shit.
While it was finally what Microsoft promised in 1985, it didn't really cut the mustard by 1995.
It was still a DOS shell at it's heart.
XP was what was promised in 1995.
Re:Bastards! (Score:4, Insightful)
Not trying to start an ST/Amiga flame, just agreeing with your point: I haven't seen a program like the old CyberPaint since the days of the ST.
Re:Bastards! (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree that it was anything more than a pile of shit.
Considering the constraints, it was a fairly amazing achievement.
While it was finally what Microsoft promised in 1985, it didn't really cut the mustard by 1995.
Microsoft promised a 32-bit, memory protected, pre-emptive multitasking, GUI OS in 1985 ? What were they going to run it on ?
It was still a DOS shell at it's heart.
It was not. A "DOS shell" doesn't provide memory protection, pre-emptive multitasking, hardware drivers or a complex compatibility layer.
XP was what was promised in 1995.
Please explain why XP would qualify as "what was promised in 1995, but Windows NT 3.1 would not.
Re:The 10 OSes I have gladly left behind... (Score:2, Insightful)
I presume you're being funny, but why was 2000 bad, and XP good? XP is mostly 2000 with extra fluff I usually turn off, and newer drivers/updates installed as standard (which is handy to save downloading, but this didn't apply when 2000 was a recent OS). And XP was hated on places like Slashdot when it first came out - everyone preferred 2000...