A Short History of Operating Systems
Mithat Konar
Dec 4, 2019
The major eras
- The no-OS era
- Mainframe/midrange-server era
- The personal computing era
- GUI desktop era
- Open source “era”
- Mobile era
The no-OS era
- until ~1960
- Earliest computers did not have operating systems.
- Expectations and capabilities were simple enough that OSes weren't needed.
- Many limited-capability modern computers still don't have OSes.
- Simple remote controls
- Microwave oven panels
Mainframe/midrange-server era
- ~1960-1975
- multiuser (with authentication), multitasking
- UNIX (late 1960's)
- many versions
- commercial but given away to academic institutions
- still widely used in research and academia
The personal computing era
- ~1975-1985
- a.k.a. microcomputer era
- single user (no authentication), single tasking
- CLI and menu UI
- CP/M (1974)
- Apple II (1977)
- DOS (1981)
- Commodore 64 (1982), Amiga (1985) …
GUI desktop era
- ~1985-2010
- Apple Macintosh (1984)
GUI desktop era
- Microsoft Windows
- 1.0 (1985), 3.1 (1992): DOS-based
- Windows NT (1993): UNIX competitor
- Windows 95 (1995): preemptive multitasking
- Windows 98 (1998): networking support
- Windows 2000 (2000): NT evolved
- Windows XP (2001): true multiuser; Pro, Home versions
- Windows Vista (2006): gazillions of versions
- Windows 7 (2009): many versions
- Windows 8 (2012): one-OS-for-all-platforms, touch-centric
- Windows 10 (2015)
GUI desktop era
- Apple's Mac OS X / OS X / macOS (2001)
- Unix-based (Darwin BSD)
- Google's Chrome OS (2011)
- Linux core hosting Google Chrome and Chrome-based apps.
Open-source alternatives
- ~1991-present
- Linux (1991)
- BSD UNIX (open versions since ~1991)
- Great for desktop/laptop use.
- Great for servers.
- Linux powers most Web servers
Mobile era
- ~2010 - present
- Embedded Linux (1991)
- Windows CE/Embedded (1996)
- Palm (1996)
- Symbian (1997)
- BlackBerry OS (1999)
- Windows Mobile (2000)
- iOS (2007)
- Android (2008)
Mobile era
- webOS (2010)
- bada (2010)
- Aliyun (2011)
- Tizen (2012)
- Sailfish OS (2012)
- Firefox OS (c. 2013)
- Ubuntu Touch (2013)
Mobile era
- Android Wear / Wear OS (2014)
- watchOS (2015)
- iPadOS (2019)
- Many small Linux projects
Not covered
- Custom OS for supercomputers, etc.