Rian Booyer
Professor Terance Carlson
CISS 370 DEA – Operating Systems
2/04/2018
A Brief History of Operating Systems: Limited Edition
Introduction
Operating systems seem so trivial in our lives but they are one of the cornerstones to modern life. If you want to Facebook you must use an operating system, Email you must use an operating system. Over the years, since after my commodore 64 days and my IBM PC XT when I could run a GUI, Windows has been my choice of operating systems for my desktop and laptop machines and servers in a business setting when required. However, since the early 2000’s I have used different flavors of free Linux distributions for server operating systems because it gives me more security and even a feeling of nostalgia to the days of typing commands in a console on my Commodore 64 or my IBM PC XT running dos 3.0. As far as phones are concerned since Android was released and is based on a Linux kernel with Java as its main programming element I have stuck with it as my choice in calling devices and smart tv functions (such as Nvidia Shield running Android TV).
I have experienced other operating systems such as Novell (from 3) for servers but alas have never been able to get my hands on an Apple Macintosh to see how well it runs and plays games but most of the time I have seen them they have been used by newspapers for writing articles and realtor offices in my area for photo editing and other publishing applications.
Microsoft Windows
According to Webopedia.com Microsoft Windows was first introduced (version 1.0) in 1985 and “was named due to the computing boxes, or ‘Windows’ that represented a fundamental aspect of the operating system.” This was a major jump from Microsoft’s MS dos operating system that only used commands such as “dir” to list directory contents (1). Windows still needed MS Dos because it “ran on top of” (2) it so you had to execute it from the command prompt. According to the guardian “Since it relied heavily on the use of a mouse…..Microsoft included a game, Reversi…..to get people used to moving the mouse around and clicking onscreen elements.”(2). Now personally I’ve never had the pleasure of this version of windows but it seems to be an upgrade to Microsoft’s Dos Shell file manager that disappeared before Dos 6.22 according to Wikipedia (I know, I know it’s the only place that mentioned it) (3). In my time I used MS-Dos from version 3 on up but dos shell was my friend until I hit windows 3.11 for workgroups. With the implementation of Microsoft’s Windows 2.0 in 1987, Windows had the option of overlapping windows on top of each other and “Minimize” and “Maximize” buttons were added as well including the addition of Word and Excel (2). Windows 3 was an upgrade to this but the next big jump for Microsoft Windows came with the introduction of Windows 95 in August 1995 that introduced the desktop that you could store icons on and a start menu that held your programs in a menu system. Windows 95 was also 32 bit and introduced plug and play according to The Guardian (2).
Windows 95 and 98 were similar (of course with Windows 98 having some upgrades to Windows 95) but it was mainly geared towards the consumer market and in 1993 Microsoft introduced the operating system Windows NT in both the desktop and server editions that was more geared to business needs (since most businesses started needing server-workstation rolls and security instead of Peer to Peer which really had no security.) and operated with pre-emptive multitasking (1).
In the year 2000 two versions of Microsoft’s Windows were released: in February 2000 Windows 2000, in September Windows ME. Windows ME was, in my opinion a joke, but according to The Guardian “Windows Millennium Edition was the last Windows to be based on MS-Dos, and the last in the Windows 9x Line.” (2). Windows 2000 however was branded as being “built on NT technology” which I and my fellow techs at the time found funny because we saw the campaign as “Windows NT built on NT technology”. However, we stopped selling Windows ME quickly and started selling both businesses and consumers on windows 2000 based versions because of the downfalls of Windows ME and the shear support time that was wasted with problems relating to the base operating system ME seemed to have. Windows 2000 came in many flavors with Professional being a client version for client computers (but also was consumer friendly to a point and even ran games well in my opinion) and at least three server versions according to Webopedia were “Server (both a Web…and an office server), Advanced Server (for line-of-business applications) and Datacenter Server (for high-traffic computer Networks).”(1)
In October of 2001 Windows XP was released and was heralded as bringing “Microsoft’s Enterprise and Consumer line of operating systems under one roof” (2). This was the first time that Microsoft tried to combine the two lines but really wasn’t complete in my opinion until Windows Vista came out in January of 2007. Many of my consumers had bad feelings towards Microsoft’s XP and Vista platforms but I have had luck thankfully and in my opinion the worst versions of Windows so far have been Windows ME and Windows 8 with Windows ME being worst by far because of the constant tech support I had to give for it. I just never touched windows 8 and waited for windows 10 to be released. (1)(2).
In October of 2009 Microsoft released Windows 7 and many considered it (according to The Guardian) “what Windows Vista should have been”. It came with many upgrades, performance enhancements, Multi-touch support and many others (1)(2). However, I seem to remember that either XP or Vista had touch screen capability just not with multi touch options.
Windows 8 was released in October of 2012 with “Microsoft’s most radical overhaul of the windows interface, ditching the start button and start menu in favor of a more touch-friendly Start Screen.” (2). I Avoided this operating system like a plague and wouldn’t even work on friend’s computers that had it installed. I told them that the only way to fix their problems was to downgrade to windows 7 then we would talk. In October of 2013 Microsoft re-introduced the start button and gave users the choice of the touch screen interface and the start button interface when the computer booted. (2)
Debuting in July of 2015 (I was running it with the technical preview in 2014) Microsoft released Windows 10 to the public and during the first year after release, it was offered as a free upgrade to windows 7 and 8 users with any qualified devices that ranged from tablets to phones to pc’s and according to Webopedia it included those with pirated versions of Windows. (1) Luckily most of my computers were running 7 and after getting used to Windows 10 I upgraded them during the free year and urged friends to upgrade even if they downgraded again just so they would be able to reinstall windows 10 when they decided to migrate anyway.
One thing to mention that along the way I have left out the Server versions of Microsoft’s Windows operating system. Since Windows NT there have been server offerings and with the release of Windows 2000 there have been multiple versions of the server for each release (usually a version for a reason such as small office, web, datacenter versions). There really are too many to introduce but I will summarize what they were for. Windows server versions provided a platform to allow for user authentication in a business, the ability to customize right’s and privileges using group policies, and giving the business a web presence with the Internet Information Services which was included in most (I say most because I’m not sure) versions but there have been a few versions of Windows Server that was dedicated to Web and Web deployment services. Verit Labs has an article called “20 Years of Windows Server Product History” and is included in my works cited page for reference (4).
Linux
Ah now we come to one of my favorite operating systems: versatile, secure, often free, and goes well with a good beer. Linux, the brainchild of Linus Torvalds and created in 1991who’s origination story of this operating story takes on many flavors (5). However, Wired Magazine’s version is the more widely accepted version that tells of how Linus Torvalds had bought a computer and installed Minix which “was an early version of Unix for Intel Machines” (6). With frustration and a post to Minix’s newsgroup asking, according to Wired Magazine’s site:
“’Hello everybody out there using minix – I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones,’ he wrote ‘I’d like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat.’” (6).
And shortly after Linux was born. An ugly child at first but has blossomed into a beautiful Operating System that I can see being used for decades (or centuries) to come.
Linux Versatility has allowed it to blossom into a “can do” platform that, if you can dream it – do it, operating system that anyone and their brother can improve upon, write their own programs for, and with the kernel being free from kernel.org anyone and their brother can easily build their own distribution.
Since there are so many distributions, releases of the kernel, and many, many things Linux can do I can’t seriously write a simple paper on everything it has and will be able to do.
Linux can be used as a desktop platform with modern distributions and as a server that can do whatever you think of, including interacting with other operating systems such as Windows, MacOS (including Macintosh server versions), Unix and so on. My personal use of Linux is limited to servers since I can’t get used to it’s desktop applications and most of my games won’t run on it; however, it did run descent 3 fairly well. I would recommend this primarily for the server usage.
MacOS
Macintosh OS has had a long history but it depends on who you ask as to when it started. Computerworld said that:
“The original Mac OS may have been revolutionary when it was unveiled in 1984, but it wasn’t designed with many features that modern operating systems would need. Initially, it offered no ability to multitask, although “cooperative multitasking” could allow a single app to monopolize the processor. There was no protected memory, meaning that if one app crashed it would likely take others down with it and potentially the entire OS”.(8)
Now Britanica.com goes into a more deeper explanation that the operating system was introduced in 1984 to “run the company’s Macintosh line of personal computers” and like Windows users used a mouse to operate the different prompts from the “Finder – a series of virtual folders and files, represented by icons” (7). Around 1996 Apple bought NeXT computers that Steven Jobs created after he left Apple and in 2001 they released Mac OS X which was a major redesign to the operating system and has been used to refer to the OS over the past 15 years from version 10.0 to 10.13 and most codenames and versions based on cats (puma, jaguar for example) (7)(8).
OS X was originally branded as Rhapsody but Steve Jobs took back the company he rebranded Rhapsody Mac OS X and included a consumer and a server version initially for education environments and enterprise called Mac OS X Server (starting with version 1.0) (8).
While OS X was in development Apple released OS 9 to serve as an intermediary between their old operating system that started in the 80’s and ran into the 90’s to help people migrate to what OS X ended up being. And according to Computerworld.com “ it did add support for multiple user logins, including network accounts; a basic level of Mac management; and the underpinnings needed for it to function as an OS X process as part of the Classic environment.” (8).
In 2001 OS X (the original V10.0) Cheetah was released (9). In 2002 Jaguar (actually the third release version) was releases and added network functionality such as automatically detecting shared network resources such as printers and scanners and support for windows network and file sharing.
In 2003 Apple released version 10.3 or Panther which is supposedly according to computerworld “Apple’s entrance into the enterprise” (8). It had two versions both the Panther and a server version called Panther server with support for Open Directory which was a network directory system based on LDAP and had the ability to integrate with Microsoft’s Active Directory. (8)
2005 brought about the release of MacOS X Tiger (V10.4 and 10.4.4) that finally allowed MacOS X to have support for Intel based processors and had updated features and apps. Computerworld states that the first Mac’s that ran with intel processors was the MacBook pro and the intel iMac (8).
Many versions of the MacOS X have been released since then (now up to V10.13) all including updates to the operating system required to keep up with the modern world but I have only touched on some of the important parts of the operating system. The one point I didn’t touch on was that MacOS is based off a POSIX standard, and though it’s not Linux or Unix it has roots in the Unix operating system developed at Bell Labs (BSD). Linux uses a monolithic kernel while MacOS uses a Microkernel which is designed for more flexibility. Even though there are some similarities between MacOS and Unix/Linux they are not the same (10).
Android
According to Android central Android can be traced back to a company called Danger that created a cellphone that had “a landscape keyboard and software that made instant messaging, web browsing, and email equally important in the interface” (11). This phone was originally called the Hiptop and was sold through a partnership with T-Mobile after the rebranding to the Sidekick (11). Since the phone supported Google search Google’s Lary Page and Seargy Brin were seen carrying the phones. Danger replaced Andy Rubin who was a a previous engineer from Apple who founded the company. However, Rubin decided to create a new company “focused on developing a platform that was open to all software designers” (11), that company ended up being Android, Inc.
In the beginning Android Inc. didn’t even have anything developed or a product to sell. The company was funded by Rubin for the first two years and with a team of engineers they focused on “make[ing] the next generation of smartphone software” focusing on open-source designs that Rubin started at Danger (11).
The T-Mobile G1 was credited as the first phone that ran Android (11). However, skipping ahead Android was officially acquired by Google in 2005 for around $50 million dollars (12).
It’s hard to summarize Androids popularity that caused it to rise to power and it would be impossible to go through every version upgrade. However, over the years Android has gained popularity and according to Statcounter.com as of January 2018 Android holds an average of 74.39 percent of the total market with Apples IOS following with 19.64 percent and Windows with a mere 0.87 percent (13).
As far as recommending a Mobile OS for someone to use I always tell them Android but I also point out that it’s a personal choice and to ask the sales individual with the carrier to demonstrate the different operating systems so that the individual can find one they like.
Conclusion
There is a staggering amount of operating systems out there for many different types of devices. It’s hard to pick just one for every contingency, for example, in an office environment you could run Microsoft’s Windows operating system or MacOS on the desktop computers and servers or even run a mixture of different operating systems in the same environment. The choices are boggling to the standard user. It all comes down to personal choice and what they are trained to use.
Works Cited
Dean, Cornelia. “Executive on a Mission: Saving the Planet.” The New York Times, 22 May 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/science/earth/22ander.html?_r=0. Accessed 12 May 2016.
1.)Beal, Vangie “The history of Windows Operating Systems.” Webopedia.com, January 16, 2012,https://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Hardware_Software/history_of_microsoft_windows_operating_system.html Accessed 02/02/2018
2.) “From Windows 1 to Windows 10: 29 years of Windows evolution.” Theguardian, 02 October 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/02/from-windows-1-to-windows-10-29-years-of-windows-evolution Accessed 2 February 2018.
3.) “Dos Shell” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_Shell Accessed 2 February, 2018
4.)Tampkins, Lee. “20 Years of Windows Server Product History” Verit Labs, 2 April, 2015, http://www.veritlabs.com/20-years-of-windows-server-product-history/ Accessed 2 February, 2018.
5.) Hayward, David “The history of Linux: How time has shaped the penguin” Techradar 22 November 2012, http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/the-history-of-linux-how-time-has-shaped-the-penguin-1113914 Accessed 2 February 2018
6.) McMillan, Robert “The Legacy of Linus Torvalds: Linux, Git, and One Giant Flamethrower” Wired 19 November 2012, https://www.wired.com/2012/11/linus-torvalds-isoc/ Accessed 2 February 2018
7.) “Mac OS” Britanica.com 11 January 2018, https://www.britannica.com/technology/Mac-OS Accessed 2 February 2018
8.) Faas, Ryan “15 years of OS X: How Apple’s Big Gamble Paid Off” Computerworld, 24 March 2016, https://www.computerworld.com/article/3047659/mac-os-x/15-years-of-os-x-how-apples-big-gamble-paid-off.html Accessed 2 February 2018
9.)Edwards, Benj “Looking back at OS X’s origins.” Mackworld, 13 September 2010, https://www.macworld.com/article/1154036/software-utilities/osxorigins.html, Accessed 2 February 2018
10.)Haas, Juergen “Mac OS X Is Not a Linux Distibution, But …”, 29 August 2017, https://www.lifewire.com/mac-os-x-is-not-linux-distribution-2204744 , Accessed 2 February 2018
11.)”Android Pre-History” androidcentral, Unknown Writing Date, https://www.androidcentral.com/android-pre-history Accessed 4 February 2018
12.) Thomas, Owen “Google Exec: Android was ‘best deal ever’”, venturebeat.com, 27 October 2010, https://venturebeat.com/2010/10/27/google-exec-android-was-best-deal-ever/ Accessed 4 February 2018
13.) “Mobile Operating System Market Share Worldwide – January 2018”, gs.statcounter.com, January 2018, http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide Accessed 4 February 2018.