OSes

cff said:
The reference to 'NEXT' seems to be wrong however. I used NEXT 10 years ago, while I seem to recall that BeOS is quite some younger. Post Win95.
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BeOS was younger, being founded in 1991. Next was founded in 1985. Both companies initially produced hardware (the BeBox and NextCube respectively) and both companies eventually tried to switch to becoming software only companies.

The reason why Be may seem younger than that is that most people didn't hear about them until Apple acquired NeXT in 1997. Be then started a campaign to make their OS known by the general public. First they had "LiveCDs" (before Linux ever did), then they starting giving away a free version that you could start from inside Windows. Unfortunately, it was soon realized that Be just didn't have the resources to compete in the x86 market and was soon forced to close down shop. The rights to their technology was then sold to Palm Inc. in 2001. Be retained just enough rights to sue Microsoft for anti-competitive practices. (I don't think that suit ever went anywhere.)

NeXT OTOH, was immediately integrated into Apple's plans as the "Rhapsody OS". Early versions focused on changing the OS to function more like the Macintosh, and was runnable on several platforms (including x86). As Apple reached the completion of the project, they split the core unix into an Open Source OS called Darwin and the commercial version became Mac OS X.

Edit: You can still get a free copy of BeOS 5 from here. The updated, commercial version can be found here.
 
Any one rememebr the Amiga? Last I heard gate way bought the OS at least, any one knows what they did with it?
 
LeHah said:
Amiga? Jesus Christ, I feel old remembering Univax that use to drip oil on your legs.
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UNIVAC or Vax? Because I hate to break to you dude, but if you had a UNIVAC dripping oil on your leg, you ARE old. Now VAX and Unisys machines I remember quite well. It wasn't all that long ago that I was still writing COBOL programs for an NX Series Mainframe that ran the MCP under Windows NT. (Stupidest design ever. Is there any question as to why Unisys is dying? I keep wondering what money keeps that company proped up.)
 
a few meters from me there are some big ass Mainframes running all kinds of old shit like Cobol. They are VERY important, I'm not authorized to go in that room...

BTW, Bruce, nice walkthrough of weird OSes. But I'm pretty happy with WinXP. Runs a lot of games. And have the internets.
 
Edfilho said:
BTW, Bruce, nice walkthrough of weird OSes.
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You're welcome. Although you should be thanking Chris, he's the (humorous?) non-believer who spurred it on. Although, I should probably thank him myself. When I was tracking down the info for the post, I bumped across a surviving copy of VisiOn! Most of you probably don't remember it, but it was the FIRST Windowing system for DOS, and came out two years before the first release of Windows! (Which was a really cruddy system anyway. Windows didn't get going until 3.0.) From reading Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, I learned that VisiOn actually caused Microsoft to annouce Windows before it even existed, thus causing sales of VisiOn to plummet. (Everyone wanted to wait for the "Microsoft" solution.)

But I'm pretty happy with WinXP. Runs a lot of games.
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I just like playing around with other OSes. Plus I have all kinds of work that requires more than what Microsoft can provide. But for games, Windows is good. :)

And have the internets.
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Do you? I thought the Internet2 infrastructure was only available to Universities and Researchers? ;)
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Now do GEM.
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Your wish is my command. Here's GEM. Isn't it pretty? Kidding! GEM (Graphical Environment Manager) was an early windowing system for CP/M, designed to allow it to compete with with its evil offspring MS-DOS and Windows. Unfortunately, Digitial made GEM interface just a little too much like the Macintosh and prompted a lawsuit from Apple Computers. Digital settled with Apple and made several changes to GEM.

GEM was later ported to DOS as a low cost alternative to Windows. However, it's best known for its port to the Atari ST computer where it served as the primary desktop environment. GEM is survived by the projects OpenGEM and FreeGEM, both of which are based on the GPL licensed version released by the SCO Group (formerly Caldera).

Gem_11_Desktop.png
 
upyr1 said:
never ran Gem...any one ever run OS/2?
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Not at home, no. I used it a couple of times. Nothing really spectacular as far as I did explore its features. More or less Win311 as far as the user is concerned. Of course it is more stable (but also more resource hungry).
 
what version were you running? I ran OS/2 version 3 which was half way between windows NT 3 and 4.o and Warp 4 which I felt had the best user interface I've seen.
Whish I could get a clone of the Warp desktop for Linux
 
Early versions of OS/2 was a co-venture between Microsoft and IBM. It highly resembled the Windows 3.x desktop.

After Microsoft and IBM split on the project, to make a long and complicated story short and simple, Microsoft took the technology and evolved it into Windows NT, whereas IBM took the technology and evolved it into OS/2 Warp.

Note that that was highly simplified and I would suggest doing research on the origins of Windows NT if you are interested.
 
The only version which was a joit venture if I rememebr was version 1. I did know about their common orgin which is the reason that IBM was able to get a good deal with Win-OS/2 which I am trying to rememeber right now wether it was a fully licenced copy of Windows 3.x
or simply a port left over from the early days. Either way
IMHO I think that if M$ had designed a win 32 for OS/2
they would have made themselves antitrust proof
as they could have stated they design their products to work with the copition...and would have been able to prevent the open source movement from being the threat it is today since OS/2 would be a player still.
 
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