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There is no "spectrum," fool. There is a definition for HLL, which today's code monkeys have either forgotten or never learned:

Whoops. I'll quote for you if you have a reading difficulty.

C is terse, low-level and permissive

Oh shit, there's more!

BCPL is low-level, typeless and block-structured, and provides only one-dimensional arrays

BCPL is what C was written to replace, also considered a low-level language at the time.

Next stupid argument, shit stain.

There is no "spectrum," fool. There is a definition for HLL, which today's code monkeys have either forgotten or never learned:

Whoops. I'll quote for you if you have a reading difficulty.

C is terse, low-level and permissive

Oh shit, there's more!

BCPL is low-level, typeless and block-structured, and provides only one-dimensional arrays

BCPL is what C was written to replace, also considered a low-level language at the time.

Next stupid argument, shit stain.

>> Another idiot who doesn't know what an HLL is. *sigh*
> Another idiot who thinks a spectrum can be defined as a boolean. *sigh*.

There is no "spectrum," fool. There is a definition for HLL, which today's code monkeys have either forgotten or never learned:

high-level language
(HLL) A programming language which provides some level of abstraction above assembly language. These normally use statements consisting of English-like keywords such as "FOR", "PRINT" or "GOTO", where each statement corresponds to several machine language instructions. It is much easier to program in a high-level language than in assembly language though the efficiency of execution depends on how good the compiler or interpreter is at optimising the program.

http://foldoc.org/hll

This site: http://foldoc.org/

Here's a wiki entry about it.

"What has been will be again,
        what has been done will be done again;
        there is nothing new under the sun." -- Ecclesiastes 1:9

Goes twice for technology.

The technical definition of emulation is "when one system performs in exactly the same way as another" - there is no requirement that the two systems have different ISAs.

If a compatibility layer is enough to deliver identical behavior (which in fact WINE doesn't) then it is emulating the other system.

This reminds me of my days programming on a DEC VAX 11/780. A call to DEC field circus was always entertaining.

http://foldoc.org/field%20circ...

As FOLDOC explains, Intel tested this idea decades ago by putting one board in a 25 ton lead safe and another outside to see if there was a measurable difference in bit rot. There wasn't. " Further investigation demonstrated conclusively that the bit drops were due to alpha particle emissions from thorium (and to a much lesser degree uranium) in the encapsulation material." They ended up redesigning the memory to be more resistant to the effect.

http://foldoc.org/GCOS

An ancient FAQ written by users is hardly authoritative, but if you accept those kind of credentials:

X was named after an earlier window system called "W". It is a window system called "X", not a system called "X Windows".

I've always referred to it as 'The X Window system'

An ancient FAQ written by users is hardly authoritative, but if you accept those kind of credentials:

X was named after an earlier window system called "W". It is a window system called "X", not a system called "X Windows".

You're probably not old enough, but there used to be something called the 80 column mind. This was something that affected programmers who had learned how to use computers back in the days when the punched card was king, and were still writing programs that expected all input and output to fit into that medium's 80 character restrictions. I worked for JPL for a few years in the mid-80's, and even then many of their newer programs used what were called "cardimages:" computer records that were designed to mimic a punched card either because they received input from a program that was a legacy from the old punched card days or who's output would be fed to one. And, of course, sometimes both were that way. I'm sure that they've moved past that by now, for the most part, but I know that their main space probe navigation system was written with cardimages in mind and I doubt that they've ever gone to the expense of having something that works so well re-written.

That definition is cited as referencing "The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, (C) Denis Howe 2010 http://foldoc.org/" whoever that is.

And Mr. Howe seems to have taken liberties with the root word of base, which means "the fundamental part of something." http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/base

Moreover TFL says "This change should not affect any existing users of Skype for Asterisk," which doesn't conflict with your cited definition.

In other words, all your base are belong to me.

The Story of Mel! http://foldoc.org/The+Story+of+Mel (That's not the original, that's the "free verse" version which is better IMHO.) It might even be a true story! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Kaye

If the back door is as well hidden as the one Ken Thompson hid in an early version of Unix, a complete audit of the source code and complete recompile of everything won't be enough to get rid of it. Of course, not many people are capable of pulling that kind of stunt off.

Halt and Catch Fire

It's also a very reasonable choice from a programming POV.

Support from IBM. Costly, but effective, for many large corporations

Effective? Hah.

I just left a company which was a big IBM shop. I had never worked in an IBM shop before. That was eye opening. We spent more time fighting the software that we did working. It was the most frustrating experience I have ever had to deal with in the workplace. I think on all future job interviews, I'll ask straighaway if the place is an IBM shop and if they say yes I'll thank them for their time.

IBM doesn't provide support, unless by support you mean allowing their you to hire their overpriced consultants. IBM takes what should be open source products and strips them of useful features, loads them with cruft, and then sells them for exorbitant prices (looking at you, Rational Application Developer).

There's a reason the definition for fear and loathing references IBM. As a former co-worker once put it: "Nobody was ever fired for choosing IBM."

I'd argue that an IBM issued linux desktop is just as bad as Windows. Leave it to IBM to find *some* way to lock you in. You'd expect that from proprietary software. But using F/OSS to accomplish vendor lock-in? That's a complete abomination.

If you really want to find out how to make programs as efficient as possible, read The Story of Mel. I've never heard of anybody who could optimize code so well. Find out if he's still alive, and if so, ask him your questions.

So what you're saying is Windows has always been bug compatible with previous versions.

Thanks for the reply.

You are absolutely correct. I did not create this account for trolling. It just kind of ended up being that way. This account was really created as a pseudo to my real account, which shall remain nameless.

So why would I create a pseudo when I have a perfectly good account (with excellent karma, too)?

Well, sometimes the groupthink gets a little intense around here. So my the persona behind the pseudo comes at life from a different perspective. Often times I agree with the general opinion around here. But even when you agree with something, you see people who agree with you for the wrong reasons, which is the very essence of groupthink. I hate that.

Another good reason to create this pseudo: maybe you hold a certain opinion about something despite knowing that your opinion is somewhat flawed, or maybe you are at least aware of and find merit in the counterarguments. I use this account to argue against my own perspective sometimes. I guess maybe it's the mental exercise. Maybe it helps me to deal with cognitive dissonance when I can disprove my own beliefs about something. But it certainly keeps me sharp trying to defend a position that is not my own. It has actually been mind opening, kind of like debate class when you had to argue for something you don't agree with.

I guess one other fringe benefit was that I got to trade insults with Arapahoe Moe. He is someone who trolled my real account, so I started unleashing the most insane, random, and vile insults I could muster up. You should read some of our flame wars, I still do when I need a laugh. They are hilarious, both of us came up with some good insults. We did that behind the play, so to speak, so we never really got modded down for it. It was great fun, and when I thought I would kill this account off I told him it was all in jest and made him a friend.

But why the pseudo? I saw fit to create a pseudo so my real account wouldn't have a split personality. There are no /. policies that I am aware of that prohibit more than one account, and I have never modded my own account. If I am trying to assume a different role, then a new account seemed justified.

But then I started to get modded down for saying things that weren't really incorrect. I started getting modded down for stuff that merely went against the grain, stuff *I* don't think was poorly argued. And then I saw the guy (whose post I replied to and pointed to in many of my rantings, James Rose or something) who posted absolute drivel and got modded to +4 insightful. It was absolute crap, and his sig was bumper sticker philosophy all the way. So I lashed out and told him what an idiot he was and got modded down while his inane babblings got modded up. It kind of came to me that even when reading /. even at +3 or higher, you still get the line noise that adds nothing to the discussion. It's just newcomers parroting the same old trite arguments everyone has already argued. It's karma whoring, but it's more. This is supposed to be a place that we can go to learn stuff, as you posited. And yet with total crap that gets modded up, that becomes difficult. So I decided I would rant about it for a while.

The trolling as of late is getting old, though. It's starting to run its course. Though while some people have replied telling me to get a life, I actually have a very busy life. I haven't posted much with my real account as of late. I just enjoy seeing how darn angry people get at my posts. Yes, it's line noise that people like you have to deal with, people who have been interested in things I have said in the past. Sorry for that. But it has been downright amusing just how angry the responses have been. All because of offtopic rantings on an online forum! Ha, and I am the one who needs to get a life! Are you aware that, to date, I have been moderated (mostly all downmodded) about 25 times? That's not the kicker, this is: my sta

Hosed not brick

This Ask Slashdot question makes the false assumption that there is one, and only one Internet backbone, and that the only way to upgrade is to replace it. As Foldoc shows, the so-called backbone is composed of a number of large-scale networks that interconnect. If you need more bandwidth, all that's needed is to add as much as you need and can afford.

Please quote the law properly: http://foldoc.org/?query=Moore's+Law

It's every 24 months, not 18, and it has nothing to do with power or speed. CPU speed has increased at significantly higher pace than Moore's law. Moore's law views the number of transistor junctions in an IC, nothing more. The size, power consumption, MIPS, and other values have had significantly different curves, most at higher paces than the law, and not in direct comparison to transistor count. CPU power (in watts) over all is relatively the same as where it started in the 80s, and is currently reducing even as Moore's law increases. http://www.eng.tulane.edu/Tef/Slides/Tulane-Moore' s%20Law%20Sept02.ppt

Also, Moore's law clearly states that the number of transistors doubles "as costs remain the same." This means if we can have a $100 laptop today, in 2 years it will still cost $100 (or more accurately the portion of the $100 cost represented by the CPU will be the same), but the CPU will have 2X the number of transistors. It may be faster, maybe not. It may use more or less wattage. This is determined by transistor spacing, impedance layers (SoI, etc), volts, and clock frequency, not Moore's law. The articles premise is simply a logical fallacy.

One more thing: Moore's law does not apply to EVERY processor, only the leading generation vs. the predecessor. There's no reason to believe the notebook will use the current processor generation, and in fact likely it will not. This has no impact at all on the validity of the law as other processors will exist that follow the law. They may simply decide that instead of the build cost for the notebook being $90 to sell at $100, that they'll use previous generation hardware using more modern manufacturing processes, and reduce the build cost to $60-80, and still likely make it faster or better somehow in the process.

Were I a betting man, I'd put money on the $100 laptop not only having a faster chip with more transistors, but that it will use less watts, have a higher resolution display, faster or stronger wireless antenna, more storage, and more ports when we look at it in 2 years. Of course, part of the design of the machine, and it's low cost, is the intent of model line longevity. We don't expect to have a new one of these every 2-4 months like the retail PC industry does. Likely, this will be re-engineered at most once per year.

The more we progress, the more we stay at the same place. Lookup the Cycle of Reincarnation on the jargon file, we are switching from thick clients to thin clients and back since the mainframes, and will continue switching as long as computing power, bandwidth and resource demand grow at different rates, leading to an asymmetric relation among those three factors.

Seriously, at what point does a large, highly redundant server become a mainframe? (Yes, I've checked the Wikipedia article and somewhat out-of-date FOLDOC definition.

Or is the definition merely, "any large computer descended from one of the old-guard mainframes?"

No, no. Dell *knows* what Shuttleworth and company up to: Ubuntu is a large global conspiracy to convert everyone's innocent home PCs into an army of walking drives. This way, they can make PCs walk all over town and commit heinous acts of deviance and wreak havoc in Smalltown, USA. It's a conspiracy, man! What, you though zombie PCs referred to those taken by some virus? You ain't seen nothin' yet, baby!

The whole linux/foss movement has all been for this moment. March forth, my minions! Mua...muaha...MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Actually a computer genius can do far more than a team of five average engineers. The term has gone out of favour, but there actually exists superprogrammers.

No, it's not a hardware limitation, it's a "software thing". Windows NT, 2000, XP, and Vista do NOT execute 16-bit code in the hardware!

What about the original Microsoft Access?

No, it was nothing to do with databases, it was a serial communication package in the days of the modem. However, it flopped so badly, they eventually re-used the name to bury all traces of the failure.

It's the second entry at http://foldoc.org/index.cgi?query=microsoft+access &action=Search

People, get real. Just because something comes from a web site with a pretentious name like Dictionary.com doesn't mean it's authoritative. That should be particularly obvious when an entry is as opinionated as this one.

And if that weren't lame enough: you're quoting an entry that describes sending the same message to multiple recipients! Which isn't the same as mailbombing a single mailbox.

"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a widely recognised codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful.

And how many people have really ever been power users of email clients?

Maybe more than you think. Back in the day I used mush, Mail User's Shell, and it literally was a full-blown shell environment, similar to csh, for email. Teh web was practically nothing at the time (I barely heard of Mosaic), so I lived on mush, trn, vi, and procmail.

That didn't sound right, so I did a little checking. FOLDOC tells me that the drives got their name because they had two 30meg volumes, rather like the Winchester 30-30. If you really were working with a 10Gig drive, it wasn't a Winchester, and it wasn't in 1979, either, because they didn't have drives that big back then.

It looks like google displayed their name with a new font. As it turns out you can't copyright a font (nor patent it). You can trademark the name of a font (or not in MS's case, but not the shape of the glyphs (characters) themselves. That's the reason you see a font named "times new roman" and it looks just like "times roman". (The hints that are what make a font look good as it is redered are separate from the shape and a different story.) Of course IANAL (I just ended up learning more about fonts and IP than you'd think was necessary working on a publishing system).

As I understand it, the Great Worm was cross-platform. Unix (SunOS?) and VMS at least.

http://foldoc.org/?Great+Worm

It's what Real Programmers write, like Mel. If you've never heard of him, follow the link, read and be humbled by his genius.

Sounds like End of Line (EOL).

"...virii/trojans/worms."

virii is not a recognized use, and if you can't get that through your brain, it certianly shouldn't be giving information about Viruses/trojans/worms in general. Even your link uses the correct term.

Besides this, the specific definintion no longer matters outside of the AV industry. Users don't care, they just want it fixed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virii

http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/plural-of-virus.ht ml

http://foldoc.org/?viruses

It isn't a feature, and it never was one, either. It's a bug that they don't want to fix. Take a look at this definition at FOLDOC, paying particular attention to section six.

What's the big deal?!?...beatles beatles is a BIFF who needs to stop writing about stupid stuff, that's what. As an omnipotnent galactic entity who happens to enjoy posting on /. I can tell you the article is actually right. I mean, saying it's like a record that was left in the sun is a bit innaccurate, but hey, for your feeble minds it will get the point across in an adequate fashion. That doesn't change what I said about beatles beatles.

Oh yeah, I am an avid mustard enthusiast, if that helps any.

--
Why yes, I am a genius.

The Motorola 6800 microprocessor was the first for which an HCF opcode became widely known. This instruction caused the processor to toggle a subset of the bus lines as rapidly as it could; in some configurations this could actually cause lines to burn up.

[Confirm?]

Well, 1440 suggests the margins are specified in twips (1 twip = 1/20 point = 1/1440 inch). So 1800 would be 1.25 inches.

While there's been quite some discussion on the subject matter, and of course you're free to pronounce it however the hell you want, I think most people pronounce it the way Linus himself does (short i):

"Hello, this is Linus Torvalds, and I pronounce Linux as Linux!"

What does PHP stand for?

PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. This confuses many people because the first word of the acronym is the acronym. This type of acronym is called a recursive acronym. The curious can visit Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing for more information on recursive acronyms.

source: php.net FAQ

• AIX is dying.
• AmigaOS is dying.
• BSD is dying.
• BeOS is dying.
• CPM is dying.
• DOS is dying.
• FreeBSD is dying.
• GNU Hurd is dying.
• HP-UX is dying.
• IRIX is dying.
• Inferno is dying.
• Linux is dying.
• LynxOS is dying.
• MINIX is dying.
• MacOS is dying.
• Mach is dying.
• MicroC/OS is dying.
• NachOS is dying.
• NeXT is dying.
• Nemesis is dying.
• NetBSD is dying.
• NetWare is dying.
• OS-400 is dying.
• OS-9 is dying.
• OS/2 is dying.
• Oberon is dying.
• OpenBSD is dying.
• Palm OS is dying.
• Plan 9 is dying.
• pSOS is dying.
• QNX is dying.
• RTEMS is dying.
• SCO is dying.
• Solaris is dying.
• SunOS is dying.
• TRON is dying.
• ThreadX is dying.
• TinyOS is dying.
• Unix is dying.
• VMS is dying.
• VxWorks is dying.
• Windows 2000 is dying.
• Windows 3.11 is dying.
• Windows 95 is dying.
• Windows 98 is dying.
• Windows CE is dying.
• Windows ME is dying.
• Windows NT is dying.
• Windows XP is dying.

"The operating system loader, BIOS, or other firmware required at boot time or when installing the operating system would generally not be considered part of the operating system, though this distinction is unclear in the case of a rommable operating system such as RISC OS. The facilities an operating system provides and its general design philosophy exert an extremely strong influence on programming style and on the technical cultures that grow up around the machines on which it runs.

The comp.os.research FAQ makes the following distinction between micro- and macrokernels:
"A recurrent topic of discussion in this newsgroup has been the comparison between microkernel (for example Mach and QNX) and `macrokernel' (traditional Unix) operating systems. The basic notion of a microkernel consists of devolving as much functionality as possible into processes rather than the kernel itself; different systems take different approaches to implementing this.

For example, some systems (such as Mach) leave device drivers in the kernel, and place higher-level services (such as file systems) outside; others (such as QNX) move device drivers outside of the kernel.

However, anecdotal evidence [93-03-03-07-56.52] suggests that the distinction between microkernel and monolithic architectures is becoming more blurred as time goes on, as the two advance. For example, most modern monolithic kernels now implement multiple threads of execution and fine-grained parallelism. Architecturally, this approach begins to appear similar to a microkernel with several kernel-space processes working from shared memory.

As an aside, people often complain that the Mach system can't be a `real' microkernel, because it is so large (at least, this is the argument most frequently cited). However, I have been told that automatically-generated code stubs contribute very significantly to the size of the kernel, and that some size reduction would be likely if MIG (the stub generator) produced better code. [Can someone from CMU comment on this?] As mentioned above, the leaving of device drivers in the kernel also contributes to Mach's size.

Debating microkernels versus monolithic kernels on the basis of kernel size misses the central, architectural point. In the same way as the point of a RISC processor is not to minimise the instruction count, but rather to make a different tradeoff between what is implemented in the processor instruction set and what is implemented in other ways, the microkernel architectural issue is to determine which services are implemented in the microkernel, and which services are implemented external to that microkernel. By making appropriate choices here, the goal is to enhance various OS attributes in a manner that might not be addressable with a monolithic kernel OS. System attributes such as performance, flexibility, realtime, etc. are all variables which are taken into account.

• AIX is dying.
• AmigaOS is dying.
• BSD is dying.
• BeOS is dying.
• CPM is dying.
• DOS is dying.
• FreeBSD is dying.
• GNU Hurd is dying.
• HP-UX is dying.
• IRIX is dying.
• Inferno is dying.
• Linux is dying.
• LynxOS is dying.
• MINIX is dying.
• MacOS is dying.
• Mach is dying.
• MicroC/OS is dying.
• NachOS is dying.
• NeXT is dying.
• Nemesis is dying.
• NetBSD is dying.
• NetWare is dying.
• OS-400 is dying.
• OS-9 is dying.
• OS/2 is dying.
• Oberon is dying.
• OpenBSD is dying.
• Palm OS is dying.
• Plan 9 is dying.
• pSOS is dying.
• QNX is dying.
• RTEMS is dying.
• SCO is dying.
• Solaris is dying.
• SunOS is dying.
• TRON is dying.
• ThreadX is dying.
• TinyOS is dying.
• Unix is dying.
• VMS is dying.
• VxWorks is dying.
• Windows 2000 is dying.
• Windows 3.11 is dying.
• Windows 95 is dying.
• Windows 98 is dying.
• Windows CE is dying.
• Windows ME is dying.
• Windows NT is dying.
• Windows XP is dying.

"The operating system loader, BIOS, or other firmware required at boot time or when installing the operating system would generally not be considered part of the operating system, though this distinction is unclear in the case of a rommable operating system such as RISC OS. The facilities an operating system provides and its general design philosophy exert an extremely strong influence on programming style and on the technical cultures that grow up around the machines on which it runs.

The comp.os.research FAQ makes the following distinction between micro- and macrokernels:
"A recurrent topic of discussion in this newsgroup has been the comparison between microkernel (for example Mach and QNX) and `macrokernel' (traditional Unix) operating systems. The basic notion of a microkernel consists of devolving as much functionality as possible into processes rather than the kernel itself; different systems take different approaches to implementing this.

For example, some systems (such as Mach) leave device drivers in the kernel, and place higher-level services (such as file systems) outside; others (such as QNX) move device drivers outside of the kernel.

However, anecdotal evidence [93-03-03-07-56.52] suggests that the distinction between microkernel and monolithic architectures is becoming more blurred as time goes on, as the two advance. For example, most modern monolithic kernels now implement multiple threads of execution and fine-grained parallelism. Architecturally, this approach begins to appear similar to a microkernel with several kernel-space processes working from shared memory.

As an aside, people often complain that the Mach system can't be a `real' microkernel, because it is so large (at least, this is the argument most frequently cited). However, I have been told that automatically-generated code stubs contribute very significantly to the size of the kernel, and that some size reduction would be likely if MIG (the stub generator) produced better code. [Can someone from CMU comment on this?] As mentioned above, the leaving of device drivers in the kernel also contributes to Mach's size.

Debating microkernels versus monolithic kernels on the basis of kernel size misses the central, architectural point. In the same way as the point of a RISC processor is not to minimise the instruction count, but rather to make a different tradeoff between what is implemented in the processor instruction set and what is implemented in other ways, the microkernel architectural issue is to determine which services are implemented in the microkernel, and which services are implemented external to that microkernel. By making appropriate choices here, the goal is to enhance various OS attributes in a manner that might not be addressable with a monolithic kernel OS. System attributes such as performance, flexibility, realtime, etc. are all variables which are taken into account.

Erm... no.

Look at the Free Online Dictionary of Computing (FOLDOC).

• AIX is dying.
• AmigaOS is dying.
• BSD is dying.
• BeOS is dying.
• CPM is dying.
• DOS is dying.
• FreeBSD is dying.
• GNU Hurd is dying.
• HP-UX is dying.
• IRIX is dying.
• Inferno is dying.
• Linux is dying.
• LynxOS is dying.
• MINIX is dying.
• MacOS is dying.
• Mach is dying.
• MicroC/OS is dying.
• NachOS is dying.
• NeXT is dying.
• Nemesis is dying.
• NetBSD is dying.
• NetWare is dying.
• OS-400 is dying.
• OS-9 is dying.
• OS/2 is dying.
• Oberon is dying.
• OpenBSD is dying.
• Palm OS is dying.
• Plan 9 is dying.
• pSOS is dying.
• QNX is dying.
• RTEMS is dying.
• SCO is dying.
• Solaris is dying.
• SunOS is dying.
• TRON is dying.
• ThreadX is dying.
• TinyOS is dying.
• Unix is dying.
• VMS is dying.
• VxWorks is dying.
• Windows 2000 is dying.
• Windows 3.11 is dying.
• Windows 95 is dying.
• Windows 98 is dying.
• Windows CE is dying.
• Windows ME is dying.
• Windows NT is dying.
• Windows XP is dying.

"The operating system loader, BIOS, or other firmware required at boot time or when installing the operating system would generally not be considered part of the operating system, though this distinction is unclear in the case of a rommable operating system such as RISC OS. The facilities an operating system provides and its general design philosophy exert an extremely strong influence on programming style and on the technical cultures that grow up around the machines on which it runs.

• AIX is dying.
• AmigaOS is dying.
• BSD is dying.
• BeOS is dying.
• CPM is dying.
• DOS is dying.
• FreeBSD is dying.
• GNU Hurd is dying.
• HP-UX is dying.
• IRIX is dying.
• Inferno is dying.
• Linux is dying.
• LynxOS is dying.
• MINIX is dying.
• MacOS is dying.
• Mach is dying.
• MicroC/OS is dying.
• NachOS is dying.
• NeXT is dying.
• Nemesis is dying.
• NetBSD is dying.
• NetWare is dying.
• OS-400 is dying.
• OS-9 is dying.
• OS/2 is dying.
• Oberon is dying.
• OpenBSD is dying.
• Palm OS is dying.
• Plan 9 is dying.
• pSOS is dying.
• QNX is dying.
• RTEMS is dying.
• SCO is dying.
• Solaris is dying.
• SunOS is dying.
• TRON is dying.
• ThreadX is dying.
• TinyOS is dying.
• Unix is dying.
• VMS is dying.
• VxWorks is dying.
• Windows 2000 is dying.
• Windows 3.11 is dying.
• Windows 95 is dying.
• Windows 98 is dying.
• Windows CE is dying.
• Windows ME is dying.
• Windows NT is dying.
• Windows XP is dying.

The operating system loader, BIOS, or other firmware required at boot time or when installing the operating system would generally not be considered part of the operating system, though this distinction is unclear in the case of a rommable operating system such as RISC OS. The facilities an operating system provides and its general design philosophy exert an extremely strong influence on programming style and on the technical cultures that grow up around the machines on which it runs.