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Books on Operating Systems History?
An introspective member of Clan Anonymous Coward asks: "Having moved to Linux only recently from Microsoft I have become interested in the history of computer systems and how they evolved. Does anyone know of a really geat book that would go through this history, ideally centred around Unix (and all of its variants) but including other systems like IBM, Next, Apple, Microsoft, Sun and everyone else in a way that would show how we got to where we are today? Webpages would be nice suggestions, too, but it's really a good read I'm after."
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
"Where Wizards Stay Up Late : The Origins of the Internet" is a good read.
It begins in the lat 50's of all places and trackes the internet upto the 90's.
What I found most interesting was the pushing all the early geeks did for the connection of thier Machines and when it finally happened they did not know what to do with it....
Tokyo Joe
It's not about all operating systems, but A Quarter Century of Unix is all about, well, a quater centruy of Unix. ;) (ISBN: 0201547775)
- First, here are lecture notes from a college course on operating system design.
- Second, some more meterial from another university (it's not clear to me that this is from a course).
- Third, a terse document detailing broad set of features common to operating systems of different periods (also part of an operating sytems course).
- Fourth, another page, which seems to be part of college course, with a section on the history of operating systems.
- Fifth, a web-slideshow on the topic.
- And Finally, a smattering of other links to the same topic by even more authors: another lecture from a college course, chapter 3, section 1 from the book Introductory Information Protection by Fred Cohen & Associates, Operating Systems - Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, and Evolution of Operating Systems User Interface Design
Just one further note, I got these links by using a new-fangled invention called a search engine on another moder dohicky called the world-wide-web. You aught to give it a try sometime, rather than having other folks do all the work for you.I hear Accidental Empires is a good book on the subject. You might also check out the PBS production of "Triumph of the Nerds." It comes in three parts and I believe you can get it on one of the many video retailers on the net.
I managed to steal a copy of Operating system design and implementation rom some crappy tech school with the original minix source code in the back - totally sweet
I like Stuff - http://voda.dhs.org/
Here's the Unix Family Tree. Predates Linux...although I've seen versions with Linux included, I seem to have neglected to bookmark one.
http://www.ehlis.com/adam/solaris/hi story.html - covers Linux & SVR5 type Unices too
Lots of people seem to be recommending the last book they read, whether it was about the Internet or Unix...
Harvey Deitel's "Introduction to Operating Systems" is used for many college courses (including the one I took). It may be a bit out of date now, and of course it's more about the design than the history, but you can piece together the history from the content. It is fairly agnostic and covers everything from MacOS to MVS.
Tannenbaum's "Modern Operating Systems" is also quite readable from what I recall.
Books describing general OS history are harder to find. ESR's jargon file (aka "The New Hacker's Dictionary") has some interesting nuggets though.
Ade_
/
Big Bubbles (no troubles) - what sucks, who sucks and you suck
I would recommend the following (all of them great and most of them funny):
Engines of the Mind: Evolution of the Computer from Mainframes to Microprocessors by Joel Shurkin. This is a great book! I found the first edition years ago on a library sponsored book swap shelf and have read it and successive editions so many times that they are dog eared and falling part. The subtitle is somewhat deceptive as it actually traces the computer to its beginnings BEFORE Babbage, with extensive sections on Hollerith (the first application of the computer to a large scaled task were Hollerith's machines used for the US Census). This book is so packed full of information and little tidbits (like the first love letter written by a computer) that you love every page. It includes the first OS's and the first programming interfaces for computers and gives ample space to explaining the breakthrough of the Von Neuman architecture. All this and the style is simultaneously informative and irreverent. This book is one of those overlooked gems in this field that should be read by everyone.
It has already been mentioned before, but I will add my two cents about Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foriegn Competition and Still Can't Get a Date by Robert X Cringely picks up where Engines of the Mind leaves off and carries the ball into the endzone. This book is filled with so much insider information about the creation most of the software and hardware companies that made up the "PC Revolution" that you wonder if the author (writing under a psuedonym) worked for them all. If you want to know what happened behind the scenes, you have to read this book.
A close contender (and probably my favorite) is Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer by Pal Freiberger and Michael Swaine. It originally came out in the Eighties but was recently updated and re-released. This book also picks up where Engines leaves off, but offers a different and more detailed slant (more characters involved) on the rise of the PC. This is an emminently readable book (with lots of priceless pictures in the new edition) and I also highly recommend it.
Finally, it goes without saying the a person interested in Free Software/Open Source should read The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric Raymond. Though not entirely about the development of Linux, it does touch heavily on the culture and should be read by everyone. period.
Just some suggestions.
Here's another vote for Cringely's Accidental Empires. I'ld also suggest Tracy Kidder's Soul Of A New Machine. Gotta say, though, as many posts have commented, if you want stuff on the history of OSes, then look online. The RTFM and FAQ archives at Stanford (forget not the ancient days of SAIL my son), MIT, and CMU have served me well. Remember that a lot of key work was done at corporations that are very happy to document their eminent histories. for Xerox PARC, check out www.parc.xerox.com/parc-go.html For Bell Labs check out www.bell-labs.com/ Also remember that the Patent Office http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html isn't a bad place to go for the paper trail (e-bay and suchlike notwithstanding). Go to http://164.195.100.11/netahtml/search-bool.html and type Tevanian in Inventor name and you'll never doubt the origins of microkernel OSes again. Last but not least, if you really want to understand where OSes came from then check out some of the failures. Find somebody who ran an academic system in the mid-eighties and ask them about VMS and the legendary dumping of the DEC Rainbow. You'll never really have a feel for why open standards are so important until you've felt the pain of, for example "85% DOS compatable" early PC clones. Check out the stuff the corporations aren't so proud of, like Exxon's attempt to become a computer company or the "Oh, it's be fine" compromises of the IBM Peanut and the Apple III (not II, III). And just in case you briefly forget that most pundits and in fact IT departments have consistently grossly misread the future of this business, think of this: it wasn't too many years ago that Richard Stallman and GNU could be seen at computer shows with a tiny little set of tables in the midst of vast wealth being blown off while "real" concerns, like "When will Chicago come out?" and "Isn't it wonderful that Unix is finally in safe hands at Novell" dominated the floor. Good luck and remember to always post your results somewhere just as public as where you posted the questions. -Rustin
Especially interesting is the Unix development tree - showing how Version whatever relate to/became System V, BSD and all the other variants (and there was a *lot* of them :)
--
Lauren Child, lauren@laurenchild.net
A great old book...
OH! Unix!
Nevermind.