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Operating System History

admin — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:05:17 +0000

I think the mark of a true geek is someone who can actually partake in a meaningful conversation relating to a technology which was pioneered half a decade before they were even born. This realisation comes after yours truly found himself today discussing the old CP/M Operating System with our web guy and the PC techie.

The trip down memory lane got me thinking that perhaps it would be nice to remind ourselves of the path we have walked to have become unfortunate enough to end up with Windows as the most popular choice of Operating System.

CP/M – Created back in 1976, this command line based Operating System was developed to provide 8-bit computer users with an easier way of managing the most basic of computer functions, as well as installing and programming applications. It would be fair to say that the younger MS-DOS was very closely based on CP/M and indeed many of the Operating System structures and commands were retained.

DOS – Of course, there were in fact several different flavours of DOS available from various vendors but MS-DOS was the one that was used by most. Released in 1981, Microsoft continued to develop this Operating System right up until the release of Windows 95, at which point it was phased out. DOS was a command based Operating System without any form of graphical interface which remained popular even after the introduction of Windows due to the fact that not only was it faster and less hardware intensive but also that it was actually required as a base for Windows to run on top of. Up until Windows 95, your computer would load itself in to DOS by default and those that wanted to use Windows would actually have to load it on top of MS-DOS as a secondary Operating System.

GEOS – This remarkably compact Graphical Operating System was originally designed for the Commodore 64; a machine with just 64k of RAM and a 1 MHz processor. Released in 1986 by a company called Berkeley Softworks, GEOS went on to become the third fastest selling Operating System in the world at one stage. Despite the ridiculously miniscule system requirements, GEOS was a nippy Operating System which looked very similar to MacOS which ran on a machine costing ten times the price.

OS/2 – Originally a joint venture between IBM and Microsoft in 1987, at one point Microsoft publically insisted that OS/2 was the future and technically speaking, it was superior. Microsoft however managed to bundle Windows 3.0 with many new PC’s (a tactic they have been able to continue up through the years) and as such OS/2 become considered an expensive alternative. Unsurprisingly, the marriage between the two companies hit the rocks and despite IBM soldering on until 2001, OS/2 never managed to enjoy the success that Windows had.

AmigaOS – I truly think that the Amiga OS deserves to be remembered as one of the most revolutionary Operating Systems in history and to me it represents a remarkable technology that it took years for Windows to catch up with. The AmigaOS which was initially introduced back in 1985 for the Commodore Amiga line of machines and not only was it nippy, stable and incredibly fully featured but it also included support for multitasking; something that we take for granted nowadays but was the holy grail of computing back then. Unfortunately financial issues at Commodore led to bankruptcy which largely resulted in development on the Amiga platform being abandoned.

Microsoft Simple Basic

admin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:40:58 +0000

Something I believe should be missed most about the 8-Bit Computer era (think Commodore 64’s, Sinclair Spectrums and Amstrad CPC 464’s) is the BASIC programming language which was built in to pretty much every one of these machines. BASIC not only allowed users to make their own programs, but also acted as the primary computer Operating System and since a rudimentary grasp of it was required to use even the simplest of functions, most users would have at some point also got around to writing their own simplistic computer programs. At the age of about six, I think my first program went something along the following lines:

10 Print “Chris is Ace”

20 Goto 10

The language was so simple that even those that had never used a computer before shouldn’t have had any real difficulty picking it up. Indeed, even those who have never seen a piece of BASIC code should be ashamed at themselves if they can’t establish that the above two lines would simply print the rather inaccurate phrase “Chris is Ace” on the screen over and over again in a never ending loop.

An overwhelming number of people were encouraged by this language to spend evenings reading up in books and magazines to improve their knowledge; popular magazines of the time actually printed entire programs over several pages which you then sat at home and entered yourself. Little boys like me genuinely dreamed that one day we would be computer programmers and would make games that thousands would get to play; back then the popular games weren’t made in elaborate studios by hundreds of highly paid university graduates but by individuals or very small groups. Of course, BASIC was far too (excuse the pun) basic for commercial games to be written in but for many it was a springboard for greater things.

Of course, little girls and boys still often want to become games designers but it is a shame that most won’t have any real inspiration to learn from day one. The average child, and indeed adult, will have a games console which will jump straight in to a game and a PC which boots in to a graphical Operating System which requires no programming knowledge whatsoever. This is progress and I certainly don’t believe that there should be any backtracking, but it’s hard not to get nostalgic at times.

I was recently intrigued to learn that Microsoft have created a free application called Small BASIC (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/devlabs/cc950524.aspx), which has been designed as an easy way for kids and adults to learn a new language. The emphasis is on simplicity and Microsoft have certainly succeeded in creating something that is extremely lightweight and easy to learn with the added advantage that users can easily publish and share their work to pick up tricks and tips from others. There are certainly limits to what you will be able to produce in this application but as it employs a much more modern and structured fashion to programming than the BASIC it has been loosely based on, you could certainly use it as stepping stone to a more complex language.

The Commodore Legacy – Part II

admin — Fri, 11 May 2007 16:03:30 +0000

Last week I started talking about the history of the now bankrupt computer manufacturer Commodore; a company that undeniably had a profound effect on the IT industry.

We left off last week after talking about the Commodore 64. This was a machine priced so aggressively that, along with bringing down the cost of computing to the home user, also marked the departure from the market place of several high profile computer companies.

Despite Commodore gaining a large market share during this period the board of directors didn’t agree with the slashing of prices and profit margins. This sparked a power struggle which ended with the departure of Commodores founder, Jack Tramiel who later started his own company along with a number of key Commodore loyalists. A year later Tramiel purchased the Consumer Division of Atari who one of Commodores most high profile rivals at the time. This situation was made worse as Tramiel began recruiting Commodore employees which resulted in several court appearances over theft of trade secrets allegations.

The remaining Commodore management was left to salvage the company and did so by buying a small company known as Amiga who had a strong interest in developing a 16-bit computer. In 1985 Commodore released the Amiga 1000; a fantastic piece of equipment at the time which boasted a 7 MHz processor and 256kb of RAM. Unfortunately the Amiga 1000 was outside the budget of many home users which is a shame when you consider the price point of the Commodore 64 was so low that it made computing accessible to all.

The Amiga 1000 went head to head with the Atari ST and both machines secured a pretty much equal market share until Commodore went on to release the Amiga 500 in 1987. This machine was released at a much more accessible price to the average home user and as such outsold the Atari ST 1.5 to 1 in the United States.

Whilst Commodores fortunes were fairly strong at this point in time the company was now facing the beginning of the end; the reasons for this downfall were numerous and in hindsight seem obvious.

Whilst previous machines such as the C64 had enjoyed a large amount of mass media advertising that the current management were reluctant to repeat, Commodore also began to favour authorised resellers rather than mass outlets such as supermarkets and toy stores that they had exploited in the past. These two factors alone meant that the machines weren’t in the public eye and when the market began becoming saturated with PC’s and Apple Macs in the late 1980’s there seemed little reason to choose an Amiga.

The technology also failed to keep up with the advances that were being made in the PC market and in some instances the company released computers that were actually a step back from what they were previously offering. The Amiga 600 for example which was released in 1992 didn’t offer any real improvements on the A500 which was released 5 years earlier. In reality there were actually several disadvantages to the A600 such as the absence of a numeric keypad and the industry standard SCSI functionality which many A500 users appreciated. The processor was exactly the same speed and the only noticeable improvement was that the machine included a little more memory.

Commodore also released several consumer related products which simply weren’t in demand at the time; the CDTV and CD32 home entertainment systems are just two examples. These were commercial failures for the company which never received any significant market share.

The final nail in the coffin came when software developers began moving away from the Amiga in favour of the PC and Apple Mac. There simply was no reason for a consumer to choose an Amiga system and with sales floundering, Commodore eventually declared bankruptcy on 29^th April 1994.

Whilst the twilight years of this company were ultimately very disappointing, the advances made in the early years to make home computing more enjoyable and affordable will be remembered in IT history forever.