The Boring State of operating systems today
What happened?
Thursday, February 24, 2005 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News
Eugenia from OSNews.com has written a lengthy but interesting article on the state of operating systems tehse days.
She writes:
In the '80s we had at least 6 operating systems that had a good hold of market share each (e.g. AmigaOS, Mac, DOS, GEM, GeOS, Unix flavors). In the '90s we had Windows and Windows NT, Mac, DOS, OS/2, Linux, AmigaOS, BSD, other Unices and even BeOS, all with some considerable usage share (before Windows 9x got to its 94% of market share and get declared monopolistic). Along with those, you had a gazillion other small, embedded, academic or hobby OSes. We are talking about a few hundrend of them.
Today, it's the game of the three, plus about 10 more OSes that draw some minor only attention by the media: BSDs, QNX, Symbian, SkyOS, Zeta/BeOS, Solaris, Windows Mobile, PalmOS and some even smaller ones, like VxWorks, Syllable, MenuetOS etc. Overall, I would't say that there are more than 40-50 active or noteworthy OS projects/products out there today. That's a far cry from the hundrends that existed in the '80s and '90s.
And I have to agree with her. The excitment of the 90s is over. Where is an OS/2 2.0 where you need it? Or the AmigaOS? MacOS X and Windows continue to evolve but there's nothing revolutionary in either one. Both seem content to snap up third party ISV ideas and toss them into the OS.
 |
|
Page 2 of 2 | |
|
|---|
Reply #22 Saturday, February 26, 2005 6:00 AM
| cars don't have to talk to each other, |
and neither do OS's 'HAVE' to talk to each other.
To ram the analogy home harder...both a car and an OS are intended to FUNCTION as designed. IF they do it 'well' then the question is STILL pertinent...why NEED more than one sort of either?
Reply #23 Saturday, February 26, 2005 8:28 PM
Reply #24 Sunday, February 27, 2005 9:05 PM
The thing I liked best about the AmigaOS/MacOS/BEOS and others was the flat out basic speed at which the could run and the programs didn't require a major piece of the hard drive...
Please login to comment and/or vote for this skin.
Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
- Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums and downloading skins.
- Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
- Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
- It's simple, and FREE!
|
|
Page 2 of 2 | |
|
|---|
Reply #21 Saturday, February 26, 2005 1:47 AM
software. right, that's what kept me from considering os x for the longest time. eventually i got a power mac g5 at the office, and it reaffirmed by belief about just how much of my time and psychic energy i was wasting on xp. it takes a hundred add ons like object desktop just to make it tolerable to look at. something screws up in some form or another every 5 minutes. i hated windows but didn't think there was a viable alternative. then i discovered there's a lot more software for the mac than i thought.... half the apps i use for productivity are java-based, so it doesn't matter. and there's office 2004 for the mac.... and ms owns virtual pc now, which is sweet, so it's all good. it's not your grandfather's apple anymore! now i'm changing platforms at home too and never looking back. windows... heh, good riddance.