The History of Operating Systems

 

Operating Systems are at the core of any modern technological advancement. Operating Systems set the rules of engagement for otherprogrammers by defining what can be done and the PC’s limitations. They are a creation of programmers, for programmers. They enable other programmers to do their job easier, as they do all the low-level operations such as interfacing with the hardware.

If you think of programs as stacked on top of each other, just like a house of cards, Operating Systems are the bottom and most important layer. An OS defines how broad and capable all the other programs will be. If an OS is limiting due to bugs or programmer’s decisions (such as the Unix “Y2K38″ bug), then so will the applications stacked on top of it.

Here are notable Operating Systems in our evolution of computers. Obviously the list of custom Operating Systems is very long, and therefore not listed here. However, I did include the most noteworthy or profound Operating Systems.

1956, GM-NAA I/O: 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 ClearPath/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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

2003, Windows Server 2003: Developed by Microsoft as an improved version of their NT OS.

2007, Windows Vista: 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.

World Most Famous Computer Viruses

                                                                       

A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer.

The term “virus” is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability.

A true virus can spread from one computer to another (in some form of executable code) when its host is taken to the target computer; for instance because a user sent it over a network or the Internet, or carried it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB drive.

Viruses can increase their chances of spreading to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by another computer.

As stated above, the term “computer virus” is sometimes used as a catch-all phrase to include all types of malware, even those that do not have the reproductive ability. Malware includes computer viruses, computer worms, Trojan horses, most rootkits, spyware, dishonest adware and other malicious and unwanted software, including true viruses.

Viruses are sometimes confused with worms and Trojan horses, which are technically different. A worm can exploit security vulnerabilities to spread itself automatically to other computers through networks, while a Trojan horse is a program that appears harmless but hides malicious functions. Worms and Trojan horses, like viruses, may harm a computer system’s data or performance. Some viruses and other malware have symptoms noticeable to the computer user, but many are surreptitious or simply do nothing to call attention to themselves. Some viruses do nothing beyond reproducing themselves.

Fame, Fear, and Loathing

Fame does not always equate to power, financial punch, or pervasiveness in the virus world. Media attention, AV software vendor marketing, and other factors influence what makes a virus famous, even if it’s not that damaging.

I have heard of some of these viruses, and despite my wide number of clients, friends, and exposure of my own computers over the years, I never saw or caught some of them.

As the Internet has become more and more a part of everyday life, and computing spreads to every phone, DVR, and other electronic device, the future holds potential for even more widespread and famous viruses than any of these. Let’s look at the top ten for clues to what the future may hold.

The Top Ten:

1. ILOVEYOU - (2000) One of the most widespread and rapidly spreading viruses ever, the ILOVEYOU virus spread via e-mail, posing as an executable attachment sent by a friend from the target’s contact list.

2. Code Red – (2001) IIS on Windows servers were the target of this virus. It also launched denial of service (DoS) attacks.

3. Nimda – (2001) Nimda used seemingly every possible method to spread, and was very effective at doing so. Nimda is notable for being one of the fastest spreading and most widespread viruses ever.

4. Melissa - (1999) The Melissa virus is notable because it is a Word macro virus. It cleverly spread via e-mails sent to contacts from the infected users’ address books.

5. Sasser – (2004) Sasser exploited a buffer overflow and spread by connecting to port 445 on networked Windows systems. The chaos caused was possibly the worst ever, as systems restarted or crashed.

6. The Morris Internet Worm – (1988) The grandfather of computer worms, the Morris worm infected Unix systems and was notable for its “accidental” virulence.

7. Blaster - (2003) Blaster exploited a Windows operating system vulnerability and let users know of its presence with a system shutdown warning.

8. SQL Slammer – (2003) This tiny virus infected servers running Microsoft’s SQL Server Desktop Engine, and was very fast to spread.

9. Elk Cloner - (1982) Despite Apple’s marketing that their systems are less prone to viruses that was not always the case. Notable as possible the first personal computer virus, Elk Cloner infected the boot sector of Apple II floppies.

10. Creeper - (1971) This is noted as possibly the first ever computer virus. It infected computers on ARPANET. Mostly harmless, the concept of Creeper has infected the minds of rogue programmers through today.