What Would Happen If You Trashed Your HD?

Indeed, nixgeek, switches and levers is a good one too. :)

See: the Z3

P.S. If you want to see the history and pre-history of computing machinery, go to the arithmeum in Bonn. They have an Enigma and a replica of the analytical engine in the basement and some completely mechanical calclulators fomr the '60, with thousands of tiny moving parts.
 
nixgeek said:
Well, I linked to those sites because there are various types of operating systems listed. This is why I couldn't give you a one sentence answer. If you're talking about an operating system similar to what at the basic level would have been like DOS, then it would be Unix. Of course, others wold argue that it's MULTICS since Unix was an offshoot of MULTICS.

It really depends what kind of operating system you mean. Even the term "computers" in your sentence is rather vague when referring to computers and operating systems as a whole in their history. Heck, switches and levers on old analog computers could be considered "operating systems" since you can move them to operate the system to get the desired result. They also mention real-time operating systems that were used in military computing devices. Sometimes humans were considered the "operating system" for a computer in the 50s like ENIAC and UNIVAC since humans had to punch in the information.

As for software that did all of this (which would probably make up what an OS is today to everyone), it would probably be the OS/360 from IBM which was an OS for mainframe systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/360

Beyond that, there's not much to tell. As for GUI operating systems, the first computer to have a GUI was the Xerox ALTO from Xerox PARC. A visit from Steve Jobs and comany to the Xerox PARC facility is what inspired the Macintosh (along with predecessors like the Lisa, Lisa 2, and Mac/XL). The rest, as they say, is history. :)
Click to expand...
Stop making things more complicated than necessary. ;)

No, I'm not talking about that stuff. Just talking about basic computers as we know them. Old computers that were first brought into the public classrooms, etc. DOS, IBM, etc. That sort of thing. Just wondered what the first OS was. I thought it was Cobal (sp.?) but you say it's Unix, so OK. Thanks. :)
 
Which was the first OS--DOS, Cobal (sp.?), other? Can anyone answer this is LESS than 10 words??? ;)
 
Well, it certainly wan't DOS, and COBOL is a programming language, not an OS.

I'll parrot the wikipedia article and say: IBM's OS/360.

But some people will say OS/360 doesn't count as an OS, and some people will argue that other, earlier systems did count as OSes. The line between "OS" and....uhh..."not OS" isn't all that clear. The common definition has changed a lot over the years. Which is why you're not getting any simple answers. :)

DOS was much later than any of this, and couldn't by any stretch of the imagination be considered the first OS. It wasn't even an original product; it was virtually cloned from other OSes of the time. You didn't think Microsoft came up with something original, did you?! ;)
 
I still say the first "OS" was the BEAD interface on the ABACUS. :p

BEAD = Beginner's Elementary Additive Desktop
 
For the record, isn't MS-DOS (and DOS in general) a derivative of CP/M?

Just wanted to confuse things even more. :p
 
I'd say Mac OS was the first real OS. Everything else was just shells and code or demos. ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top