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The 10 Greatest Operating System Upgrades Ever | |
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| Time: 11:46 EST/16:46 GMT | News Source: PC World | Posted By: Chris Hedlund | ||
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On Thursday, Microsoft will officially launch Windows Vista--for business users, at least--and while I don't know what specific claims it'll make about the new product at its bash in New York, I'm pretty sure they'll boil down to the notion that Vista's a major upgrade and we all ought to get it. Whether Vista is a big deal for you is a matter that only you can decide. | ||
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| #1 By 2960 (68.100.7.161) at 12/1/2006 1:50:52 AM |
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Oh, man. Some of those bring back fond memories.
NewDos/80, LDOS and MultiDos (for the TRS-80) particularly. I used all three. LDOS was technically the most sophisticated, and I'd put it up against ANY command-line OS that has existed besides perhaps Linux. Those were the REAL days of computing. TL |
| #2 By 13030 (198.22.121.110) at 12/1/2006 11:54:00 AM |
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I have a particular fondness for Apple DOS 3.1, MS-DOS 2.0, Windows For Workgroups 3.11, and
Windows 2000. And, TL, I agree with your comment about the "REAL days of computing". Kids these days have no idea about things such as writing a DOS interrupt routine. Interrupt 21h anyone? |
| #3 By 8556 (12.207.97.148) at 12/1/2006 12:07:39 PM |
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Windows for Workgroups was kick-ass at the time. Microsoft tech support even helped me get a driver for an old IBM keyboard that "wasn't supported".
Worst OS ever: Dos 4.1. Can you say "crash" in basic? |
| #4 By 1401 (69.27.196.125) at 12/1/2006 12:07:43 PM |
| Yeah - I'd have to agree also. All this stuff we're doing now, online banking, satelitte mapping, terabyte databases, digital music and video - that's all kid's play... |
| #5 By 13030 (198.22.121.110) at 12/1/2006 1:52:13 PM |
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#4: All this stuff we're doing now, online banking, satelitte mapping, terabyte databases, digital music and video - that's all kid's play...
It actually is considering the sophistication of today's developer tools, integrated debuggers, and the wealth of examples, knowledge bases, newsgroups, open source code, and so forth available on the internet. Back in the day, we had to glue (or tape!) the zeros and ones together, by lamp light, uphill (both ways), and in the snow... barefoot! (And I'm not even that old.) Seriously, once dejanews came about, my productivity jumped tremendously. (Meanwhile, my trade magazine subscriptions and technical books purchases have dwindled.) Writing code today, whether real-time online banking or satellite mapping, is easy--web services and the Google Maps API have made developing solutions for things like this more a business exercise than a technical accomplishment. The work I've done, basically by myself, in the past 7 years alone would have required dozens of developers just 20 years ago. |
| #6 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 12/1/2006 2:51:29 PM |
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Boolean algebra anyone? I recall working with a "basket" and a mechanical "commutator" - long before there were any fully synchronous timing devices - not even a clock to work with.
CH has a good point. One had to manually address both top and bottom of a signal in order to bind instructions - much less sets and highly specialized engineers and instruction sets were used to perform very simple tasks. Structuring data for any purpose, for example, took specific engineers using specialized sets of instructions many weeks to make any visible progress. Getting a line of data out was a real accomplishment. I guess the main point [of differentiation] is that back in the day developers didn't exist. Developers were engineers that specialized in signals analysis and advanced degrees in electrical and signal engineering were required in order to begin to control signals as they were used to control, or make use of gates - aligned in very specific ways. To this day, these techniques are used and the results provide the basis for all that developers in the present day use in the way of much higher order tools. Of course, back in the day is relative - there is always some point of historical reference and the goals have remained very similar - machine assisted processing - however enabled. CH's point is very relevant, because today, precious few people have any knowledge of how machines actually work, or how higher order tools are built and supported. It does however remain very helpful to understand these things and there is great relevance in understanding exactly how signals are structured - I mean, an SRV Paged and Non-Paged Resource Pool error has an entirely different meaning to someone who understands how affected signals move along that path releative to how they are supported in say, an operating system, which uses drivers and has a file system [very crude example, actually]. Surprisingly, it is really not hard to understand, or come to in any case... after all, one was, and is, dealing with very tiny amounts of very basic information and rules. The thing to remember is that all of what I have written above still applies - I am fond of a phrase we sometimes use to help business people who really push price over much else when considering solutions; it is, "yeah, but someone still has to do it..." This remain true of all that we in our industry do. Someone still has to work with the very base elements that support everything above it and the view back into that for many people is no longer clear - since it no longer has to be. It does however help, a great deal, to know these things. When we design systems, we do so from an understanding of how the signals are going to move through an ASIC, FPLA, or FPGA and then work to take advantage of that knowledge. Interestingly, for those that can, one can make systems perform in ways that are very hard to believe - squeezing the orange, so to speak. Other perspectives are equally vaild - what people are doing with all this technology and associated technique is amazing - mind numbing in many cases and as imaginitive and disciplined as that which I have described - neither of course has any value without the other, which is a great place to end another perhaps, too lengthy of a post. |
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