I am reading a lot about the early computer systems lately. One thing that I find interesting is the development of operating systems.
An Operating System is what makes your computer tick: it’s software that keeps track of where your files are, starts and stops programs, handles network connections and makes sure all your hardware works together. The most common Operating Systems are Windows, Linux and OSX.
When the first computers were developed in the 1950’s and 60's, there were no operating systems. There were human operators loading tapes and pushing buttons to manipulate the CPU.
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Then came the wild west period. At some time in the 1970’s, someone thought it’d be great if everyone could have a computer at home. A lot of companies started to sell their own version of a ‘personal computer’ (pc). And every computer manufacturer came with its own operating system. It was a wonderful time with lots of crazy ideas.
And all of that kind of crystalized into the situation that we’re now in with roughly 2 sorts of operating systems: either something that smells like Unix, or something that rhymes with flindows. These two are by no means perfect, but they have come a long way. A lot of very smart people have spend the last few decades optimizing, tweaking, rethinking and debugging these systems.