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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
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.Here's the Unix Family Tree. Predates Linux...although I've seen versions with Linux included, I seem to have neglected to bookmark one.