Uncreative Labs

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Please feel free to take part in my poll and comment as to why you think such and such of an OS is the greatest the 20th Century had to offer. If I have left your OS out please let me know.

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 377 Location: Stuttgart, Germany

DOS or CP/M. Why? Because that were the first OSes which would turn a bunch of expensive circuits into a useful tool! Windows 95,98,98SE, etc. all wouldn't have been possible without DOS.

Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 3:28 pm

I agree with mf_2. DOS was the best of the 1900's. It began what is now computing as we know it.

In the 21st century, Linux is best. It drives the open-source community which is really really good.

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 594 Location: Western NC

DOS. But for a different reason. It essentially thinned out the market of 8/16 bit machines (with a little help from the IBM PC) to where machines spoke a "common language"

Joined: 19 Oct 2004 Posts: 138 Location: Lynnwood,WA

PC-DOS/MS-DOS/DR-DOS/WE-DOS (What Ever-DOS)

1.) DOS was pretty darn stable. I think out of the five years of working with computers, I've only ever crashed DOS twice, both using a corrupted copy of Duke Nukem 3D.

2.) DOS indeed weeded out all the extrenious different formats availible, leaving us with either DOS (IBM PC/XT/AT or Clone of such), or a Macintosh in the end.

3.) DOS is still useful for plenty of stuff today (show me an 8 MHz XT Clone and some 8-bit bus compatible parts, and I'll show you how to teach a Model T to fly). Heck, I still use it for word processing, spreadsheeds, web browsing, and even graphcs these days. And in a matter of opinion, I liked it's game better, which could cover from old Text titles programmed in BASIC to full high resolution accelerated mayhem (I've heart GTA 1 was made for DOS even).

I'd also have to say Linux, though I don't think Linux really took off too much since it's really taking off more these days in the early 20th century. 5 years ago I was barely aware of Linux, and my only resource was a CD-ROM that I had seen at a friends house (a VERY old distro aimed at 386SX based machines or better), now I see it listed everywhere as a viable option as an operating system.

Guest

I chose Windows 98SE because of its compatibility with hardware and decent graphical user interface. It had all the great capabilities of DOS plus much more. It was a lot better than its predecessor Windows 98 and 95. My second choice would have been MS-DOS. BTW I am curios as to who said Amiga Workbench was the best OS? I wonder what their reasoning is.

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

In 1986 Workbench made DOS "it's bitch". A true 32-bit multitasking OS offered in the mid eighties at a very reasonable price. I guess perhaps I'm not just rooting for workbench but the entire platform. I feel that in many ways Workbench is still more productive than MS-Windows. Though, I am mostly referring to Workbench 1.x. I never got into the ECS/AGS platform so I never got to try the later "AmigaOS". However, I think if it were not for Commodore, Workbench would have been far more successful. DOS would probably rank second on my list.

Joined: 19 Oct 2004 Posts: 138 Location: Lynnwood,WA

Ki Mendrossen wrote:

I chose Windows 98SE because of its compatibility with hardware and decent graphical user interface. It had all the great capabilities of DOS plus much more. It was a lot better than its predecessor Windows 98 and 95. My second choice would have been MS-DOS. BTW I am curios as to who said Amiga Workbench was the best OS? I wonder what their reasoning is.

Man, I can't believe I forgot 98 SE on my list, since I STILL use it, and practically REFUSE to upgrade to a newer version of Windows. I've run it a week without crashing, and have not had to reformat/reinstall for almost 2 years now.

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 10:11 am

It's a tough decision, really.

In one corner, you've got MS-DOS, the OS that bought the PC to the people.

In the other corner, you've got Windows 2000, a reasonably solid reliable OS that's easy for everyone to use.

Whilst, in yet another corner, you have UNIX, which was really a revolutionary OS for it's time, and it's reliability and scalability is still revered today.

Joined: 01 Oct 2004 Posts: 169 Location: behind you!

I voted for dos simply because it's rock solid. After running vintage systems for YEARS I have yet to have dos fail (now I'v had apps or drivers cause problems).

Joined: 03 Dec 2005 Posts: 41 Location: Netherlands

Ki Mendrossen wrote:

Please feel free to take part in my poll and comment as to why you think such and such of an OS is the greatest the 20th Century had to offer. If I have left your OS out please let me know.

Where is OS/2 ?

And sorry, win95 is not an OS..

Joined: 10 Feb 2005 Posts: 7 Location: Oneonta, NY

If i could still vote i'd vote for mac os. Why you ask? It really made it possible for the general public to us PC's in a meaningful way on a regular basis. But no one uses macs, you say? Well, whenever you use windows, your just using a ripoff copy of MacOs, IMO. There would be no windows without MacOs, and millions of people wouldn't be wired today. With Dos, it was easier to use a typewriter then a wordprocessor. The mouse was key. Sure Mac stole em from xerox, but they marketed them (which is the exact reasons why many of chose Windows, because of its marketability). Mice made computers more then glorified calculators. Therefore, MacOs is the most important. IMO.

Peace.

Joined: 28 Feb 2006 Posts: 127 Location: LI, NY

tommyb wrote:

If i could still vote i'd vote for mac os. Why you ask? It really made it possible for the general public to us PC's in a meaningful way on a regular basis. But no one uses macs, you say? Well, whenever you use windows, your just using a ripoff copy of MacOs, IMO. There would be no windows without MacOs, and millions of people wouldn't be wired today. With Dos, it was easier to use a typewriter then a wordprocessor. The mouse was key. Sure Mac stole em from xerox, but they marketed them (which is the exact reasons why many of chose Windows, because of its marketability). Mice made computers more then glorified calculators. Therefore, MacOs is the most important. IMO.

Peace.

Actually I heard Microsoft stole the idea from Visi-On too ( http://toastytech.com/guis/vision.html ) It's interesting how the biggest computer company in America's foundation is based off of sly "rip offs" Razz

Joined: 02 May 2006 Posts: 11 Location: Pheonix, Arizona

a year late or so--

but my vote would be for VMS.

Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 6:21 pm

"The greatest OS of the 20th Century?" That's a bit of a big question.

I believe I had selected MS-DOS when I cast my vote a few months ago, simply because it was groundbreaking for the IBM-compatible platform and established many conventions that are still used today.

By no means is my reasoning for that choice unanimous. I rather like Windows 95 OSR2, which is faster and much nicer to use than Windows 98 and is as stable as non-NT Windows versions ever got. The Mac OS is notable for popularizing graphical user interfaces, and a case could be made for the legacies of UNIX and CP/M as well.