[Warning: Suited for techies and tech enthusiasts; others may find it boring]
I was talking to one of the new joiners at our firm today - we were talking about a client using Sun's hardware for a project when he asked why Sun ran only Solaris and no other OS - I started to explain him that Solaris was actually a Unix variant when the conversation turned to free software, Linux etc. and generally into the lineage of operating systems, the history of modern computing etc.
During our brief chat I realized that for most of us post-90's generation, the seeming "excitement" times in computing were either the mid-90's when Linux and GNU/ FSF grew or it was even later when Web2.0, Software as a Service etc grew. But I think the most exciting times for the computing industry when the real "pirates" swarmed the industry was the period of 60s / 70s when the foundation of the personal computing world was being laid.
The foundation of personal computing - unlike what most people think - was neither laid by Steve Jobs / Apple nor was it laid by Bill Gates / Microsoft; most of what we saw taking shape in the mid / late 90s grew out of the multiple "under the surface" projects which were undertaken by enthusiasts in mid/ late 70s.
In the 1960s, computing was mostly done on behemoth mainframe systems - in contrast to today's commodity computers where each component is standard - a hard disk from Seagate or WD all are alike and fit into any computer; a computer from Dell and HP run the same Windows Operating System (OS) alike - mainframes were monolithic in design. Each component was designed ground up for the same mainframe, there were no commodity manufacturers of components, and, every mainframe had its own OS written only to run it - you could hardly ever port an OS from one mainframe to the other.
So the story goes that, sick of the routine to write operating systems from scratch every time they manufactured a new mainframe computer, computer companies (AT&T/Bell and GE) - who built these mainframes - funded a federal project at MIT to create a 'reusable' OS which was titled Multics - Multiplexing Information and Computer Services. This would potentially have been the world's first "commodity" operating system - however as most federal projects go, the Multics project never succeeded in delivering a final ready product to the industry and was gradually scrapped.
However, two engineers working on the project - Peter Neumann and Dennis Richie (Yes! the Daddy of C programming language) in parallel created a "smaller" clone of the Multics OS which to mock Multics was named Unix. Unix had many remarkable features - first it was 'generic' such that it could be deployed on different hardware devices, second it had software 'components' or modules which fit into each other independently - thus you could leave out components that you didn't need for your device; it was also the first OS to have a clear segregation between system kernel and system utilities, third it was built on a foundation principles of large scale systems - so it had all the essential features such as security, user accounts, scalability of kernel to suit the needs of any robust system.
To cut the story short - it is from the cradle of Unix which was (when it was developed) an open standard for Operating Systems that the DOS (predecessor of Windows) and even Linux emerged. In fact, the story continues that Unix became a proprietary Bell Labs property with time because it was developed by Richie and Neumann when they were on rolls of Bell and further development was funded by Bell. To escape the clutches of Bell - Richard Stallman created GNU (mocking Unix as GNU's Not Unix) as a open sourced 'copy' of Unix [ref].
Similar to how modern day OS emerged from Unix is the story of email and internet as well. Large mainframe were too costly to be dedicated to one or few users. Each mainframe could simultaneously perform multiple tasks of different users. Hence just like we have "accounts" on GMail or the office network - different computer engineers had "accounts" on a single mainframe.
Since different computer engineers often worked in shifts with their own 'respective accounts' on the same mainframe, they needed a method to asynchronously exchange information regarding the system. It was for this that the method of "username@system" invented which was the precursor of the email that we use today. The internet itself started from a early "point-to-point" communication between two or more large mainframe systems (which is why the email protocol needs a 'system' name after the @).
Another foundation of today's computing world is the commodity 'programming languages' which make programming for different kinds of hardware platforms possible without having to learn a new language for a new hardware. More importantly, programmers will relate to the fact that the syntax and constructs of most modern day programming languages are similar and in most cases identical and are all derived from one 'mother' programming language "C". "The origin of C is closely tied to the development of the Unix operating system" - as quoted from Wikipedia.
There's a lot more to write and the inquisitive should read all all they can on Wikipedia about Babbage's Analytical engine, Mainframes, Unix, Linux, GUI, Email, World Wide Web, OSX, DOS/Windows, C, GNU/Linux, PHP etc etc. However, in essence, I think as a computer enthusiast if I would like to live in a period other than today - I would like to live in the swinging 60s and the period post that - not for the dizzy hippy movements but for the immediate succeeding revolutions which happened in computing and software programming which shaped most of what we see today in form of internet, Cloud, tablets and mobile apps.
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During our brief chat I realized that for most of us post-90's generation, the seeming "excitement" times in computing were either the mid-90's when Linux and GNU/ FSF grew or it was even later when Web2.0, Software as a Service etc grew. But I think the most exciting times for the computing industry when the real "pirates" swarmed the industry was the period of 60s / 70s when the foundation of the personal computing world was being laid.
The foundation of personal computing - unlike what most people think - was neither laid by Steve Jobs / Apple nor was it laid by Bill Gates / Microsoft; most of what we saw taking shape in the mid / late 90s grew out of the multiple "under the surface" projects which were undertaken by enthusiasts in mid/ late 70s.
In the 1960s, computing was mostly done on behemoth mainframe systems - in contrast to today's commodity computers where each component is standard - a hard disk from Seagate or WD all are alike and fit into any computer; a computer from Dell and HP run the same Windows Operating System (OS) alike - mainframes were monolithic in design. Each component was designed ground up for the same mainframe, there were no commodity manufacturers of components, and, every mainframe had its own OS written only to run it - you could hardly ever port an OS from one mainframe to the other.
So the story goes that, sick of the routine to write operating systems from scratch every time they manufactured a new mainframe computer, computer companies (AT&T/Bell and GE) - who built these mainframes - funded a federal project at MIT to create a 'reusable' OS which was titled Multics - Multiplexing Information and Computer Services. This would potentially have been the world's first "commodity" operating system - however as most federal projects go, the Multics project never succeeded in delivering a final ready product to the industry and was gradually scrapped.
However, two engineers working on the project - Peter Neumann and Dennis Richie (Yes! the Daddy of C programming language) in parallel created a "smaller" clone of the Multics OS which to mock Multics was named Unix. Unix had many remarkable features - first it was 'generic' such that it could be deployed on different hardware devices, second it had software 'components' or modules which fit into each other independently - thus you could leave out components that you didn't need for your device; it was also the first OS to have a clear segregation between system kernel and system utilities, third it was built on a foundation principles of large scale systems - so it had all the essential features such as security, user accounts, scalability of kernel to suit the needs of any robust system.
To cut the story short - it is from the cradle of Unix which was (when it was developed) an open standard for Operating Systems that the DOS (predecessor of Windows) and even Linux emerged. In fact, the story continues that Unix became a proprietary Bell Labs property with time because it was developed by Richie and Neumann when they were on rolls of Bell and further development was funded by Bell. To escape the clutches of Bell - Richard Stallman created GNU (mocking Unix as GNU's Not Unix) as a open sourced 'copy' of Unix [ref].
Similar to how modern day OS emerged from Unix is the story of email and internet as well. Large mainframe were too costly to be dedicated to one or few users. Each mainframe could simultaneously perform multiple tasks of different users. Hence just like we have "accounts" on GMail or the office network - different computer engineers had "accounts" on a single mainframe.
Since different computer engineers often worked in shifts with their own 'respective accounts' on the same mainframe, they needed a method to asynchronously exchange information regarding the system. It was for this that the method of "username@system" invented which was the precursor of the email that we use today. The internet itself started from a early "point-to-point" communication between two or more large mainframe systems (which is why the email protocol needs a 'system' name after the @).
Another foundation of today's computing world is the commodity 'programming languages' which make programming for different kinds of hardware platforms possible without having to learn a new language for a new hardware. More importantly, programmers will relate to the fact that the syntax and constructs of most modern day programming languages are similar and in most cases identical and are all derived from one 'mother' programming language "C". "The origin of C is closely tied to the development of the Unix operating system" - as quoted from Wikipedia.
There's a lot more to write and the inquisitive should read all all they can on Wikipedia about Babbage's Analytical engine, Mainframes, Unix, Linux, GUI, Email, World Wide Web, OSX, DOS/Windows, C, GNU/Linux, PHP etc etc. However, in essence, I think as a computer enthusiast if I would like to live in a period other than today - I would like to live in the swinging 60s and the period post that - not for the dizzy hippy movements but for the immediate succeeding revolutions which happened in computing and software programming which shaped most of what we see today in form of internet, Cloud, tablets and mobile apps.
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