History and Evolution of Operating System
Operating Systems are at the center of any modern technological advancement facilities. It set the rules of enagagement for other programmers by defining the things that it can do and the computer's limitations. For programmers, operating systems are their creation that they contribute to the society that can be a great help. They make works of the programmers to be easier, as they do all the low-level operations such as interacting with the hardware.
So, the following will show the history of operating system as it evolves along the generation.
1956, GM-NAA I/O: It was developed by Robert L. Patrick of General
Motors for use on their IBM 704 mainframe. This early OS was primarily designed
to automatically switch to the next job once its current job was completed. It
was used on about fourty IBM 704 mainframes.
1961, MCP (Master Control Program): Developed by Burroughs Corporations for
their B5000 mainframe. MCP is still in used today by the Unisys Clear Path / MCP
machines.
1966, DOS/360: After years of being strictly in the
hardware business, IBM ventured into the OS. IBM developed a few unsuccessful
mainframe Operating Systems until it finally released DOS/360 and its
successors, which put IBM in the driver seat for both the hardware and OS
industries.
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| 1969, UNIX |
1969, Unix: Developed by AT&T Bell Labs programmers
Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna. It gained
widespread acceptance first within the large AT&T company, and later by
colleges and universities. It is written in C, which allows for easier
modification, acceptance, and portability.
1973, CP/M (Control Program/Monitor (later
re-purposed as “Control Program for Microcomputers”): Developed by Greg Kildall as a side project
for his company Digital Research. CP/M became a popular OS in the 1970’s.
It had many applications developed for it, including WordStar and dBASE.
It was ported to a variety of hardware environments. In fact, IBM
originally wanted CP/M for its new Personal Computers, but later selected
MS-DOS when a deal could not be reached.
1977, BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution): Developed by the University of California,
Berkeley. BSD is a Unix variant based on early versions of Unix from Bell Labs.
1981, MS-DOS: Developed by Microsoft for the IBM PC’s. It
was the first widely available Operating Systems for home users. In 1985,
Microsoft released Microsoft Windows, which popularized the Operating System
even more. Microsoft Windows allowed users a graphical user interface (GUI),
which rapidly spread Microsoft’s product.
1982, SunOS: Developed by Sun Microsystems, SunOS was
based on BSD. It was a very popular Unix variant.
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| 1984, Mac OS |
1984, Mac OS: Developed by Apple Computer, Inc for their
new product, the Macintosh home PC. The Macintosh was widely advertised (the
famous 1984 commercial is available below). Mac OS was the first OS with a GUI
built-in. This lead to a very stable OS, as well as wide acceptance due to its
ease of use.
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| 1987, OS/2 |
1987, OS/2: Developed by
a joint venture of IBM and Microsoft. Though the OS was heavily marketed, it
did not pick up in popularity.
1991, Linux: Developed by
Linus Torvalds as a free Unix variant. Linux today is a very largely
contributed Open Source project that plays a very prominant role in today’s
server industry.
1992, Sun Solaris: Developed by
Sun Microsystems, Solaris is a widely used Unix variant, and partially
developed based on Sun’s SunOS.
1993, Windows NT: Developed by
Microsoft as a high-end server Operating System, the NT code became the basis
for Operating Systems to this day. NT was primarily used on computers used as
servers to counter the Unix dominance in the arena.
1995, Windows95: Developed by
Microsoft, it was the first Microsoft Operating system to have a graphical user
interface built into it. It was tremendously marketed (successfully) and
quickly swept across the country and the globe. Below is one of Microsoft’s popular
commercials, featuring the Rolling Stones with “Start Me Up”, drawing attention
to Microsoft’s “Start” button, which to this day is a dominant feature of their
Operating Systems.
1997, JavaOS: Developed by Sun Microsystems, JavaOS was
developed primarily using the Java programming language. The OS was created to
be installed on any device, including PC’s.
1998, Windows98: Developed by Microsoft, Windows 98 was the
next iteration of the Microsoft Windows95 Operating System.
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| 1999, MacOS X Server 1.0 |
1999, MacOS X Server 1.0: Developed by Apple Computer, Inc., MacOS X
Server 1.0 was a precursor to Apple’s MacOS X desktop version, which replaced
it in 2001. MacOS X Server 1.0 was developed for Apple’s popular Macintosh PC.
2000, Windows 2000: Developed by Microsoft, Windows 2000 was a
much improved Operating System over Windows 98. It was developed from a
dramatically different code base. It was targetted for business oriented uses.
2000, Windows ME: Developed by Microsoft, Windows ME (also
called Windows Millenium) was a rather unsuccessful new version of Windows 98
and had a short shelf life. It was released just seven months after Windows
2000 and just a year before Windows XP.
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| 2001, MacOS X Version 10.0 |
2001, MacOS X Version 10.0: Developed by Apple Computer, Inc., MacOS X
Version 10.0 dramatically changed the user interface for Apple’s Macinstosh
users.
2001, Windows XP: Developed by Microsoft, Windows XP was an
enhanced version of Windows 2000 code base. XP became widely popular and is
used extensively today, despite the release of newer versions of Windows.
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| 2003, Windows Server 2003 |
2003, Windows Server 2003: Developed by Microsoft as an improved
version of their NT OS.
2007, Windows Vista 2007: Developed by Microsoft, Windows Vista had
been slow in taking off.
2008, Windows Server 2008: Developed by Microsoft as an upgrade to
Windows Server 2003.
2009, Windows 7: Developed by Microsoft to replace Vista,
“Win7” is currently used by over 50% of internet users.
2012, Windows 8: Developed by Microsoft to replace Win7,
“Win8” was just released October 26th, 2012, the same date as its Surface product.
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