From: Christopher Browne Date: 2002-03-20T07:20:59+09:00 Subject: Re: Is there anything left but *nix and Windows? Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw when Chris Gehlker would write: > In a totally different context, Massimiliano Mirra asked: > > Is extconf.rb a dependable way on non-*nix platforms? > > Which made we wonder if non-*nix is just another work for > Windows. It seems like in the distant past, DEC had VMS, IBM and > Data General had their own non-*nix OSes, and there was something > called CPM for PCs. CP/M was essentially what Microsoft "cloned" to get MS-DOS, so that you've probably not missed anything too much. > But now BeOS is gone and I look around for where Ruby runs and it > seems that it comes down to Windows and *nix. I suppose it might run > on Palm Desktop or something but, If so, the PickAxe Book doesn't > mention it. > > It's kind of sad, really. I'm sure all those other OSes had their > good points. BeOS wasn't fundamentally different from Unix; it included a POSIX layer as an important part of it. MacOS-X is "a Unix." VMS and MVS and OS/390 and OS/400 and Stratus and Tandem are still out there; they're largely hiding on big boxes in back rooms, invisible to consumers. It's not at all evident that there will be new systems that are as different from Unix as they are coming out any time soon. You can probably blame Microsoft for most of it. Microsoft has been "at war" with all its alternatives, with the regrettable result that it is nigh unto impossible to present any alternative to "Whatever Microsoft Sells Today" and Unix. Microsoft hired a bunch of CMU's people, cancelling various projects along the way, and the ground is effectively pretty scorched now. In effect, the crops have been burned and the land salted so that nothing really new can grow in the OS arena. OS/400 was probably the last successful "new" OS to come along, a fruit of CMU's Hydra project. -- (concatenate 'string "cbbrowne" "@ntlug.org") http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/oses.html Rules of the Evil Overlord #65. "If I must have computer systems with publically available terminals, the maps they display of my complex will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment."