| How Computer Operating Systems Have Changed For those who dare, walking through the TechNewsletters IT department can be an enlightening experience. As with most IT areas, desks are littered with computer parts, stacks of software boxes, crusty coffee cups and last week's pizza boxes. The walls are equally cluttered with family photos, charts and posters. Today I noticed a new poster on the the history of computer operating systems had been added to the clutter. Have you ever wondered how Computer Operating Systems have changed over the years? Lots of modern computer operating systems (OS) are a lot older than you would think. Early computers dating back to 1956 did not run on a separate operating system per se. Rather, because the hardware was so integrated with the software it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. I remember trying to purchase a 'mini-computer' for my company in those days and the vendor was horrified that I wanted to code it myself. That was a definite no-no! But that all changed with a quirk of fate. In 1974, the US Justice Department forced the breakup of AT&T (known as 'Ma Bell' in those days). As one of the terms of the final breakup, AT&T was not allowed to get into the computer business. Unfortunately they had a tiny little division in New Jersey called Bell Labs that employed two employees; Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan who went with the idea that 'operating systems' should be independent of the hardware they run on. This was a radical idea and they immediately ran into some obvious problems - not all CPU processors understood the same instruction set - so how could one operating system run on disparate hardware? Their answer was genius in action. They created a computer language that could take the core operating system and compile it into the necessary op codes for a particular processor. Simple enough idea huh? But the genius of it all became known as the 'C' computer language and the operating system it compiled is called UNIX these days. I remember going to my University bookstore (which was the only place you could buy computer books in those days) and ordering 'K&R' - a thin little manual for C - to code for a computer called an Ohio Scientific. But wait. This did not do AT&T any good no matter how good an idea it was. They were prevented from selling it, or installing it or doing much of anything with these products that involved a profit. So, they did the next best thing. They gave it away free. Virtually any University that wanted it, got it. Gratis. The net result is history. Whole generations of developers have grown up being educated on the Unix way of doing things. And naturally most any new operating system developed since has had its roots in Unix. Even the latest and greatest operating system for Apple is Unix-based - still - and after all these years! The more OSs change, the more they stay the same. The Computer Operating System (OS) Map is a prefect addition to the walls of any IT department. This map poster illustrates computer OSs now and their evolution path over the past 60 years. Details are available here. Dale Janssen
Editor |
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