37 Operating Systems, 1 PC

cpaluc writes "Bored? Surplus spare time and PC hardware? Read on. OSNews has links to a couple of articles (1,2) about a guy who installed 37 operating systems on one PC. There's something to do with your spare time and hardware."

Comments

37?

[mao che minh]

I can't even name 37 operating systems

Re:37?

[User 956]

37? In a row?

Re:37?

[Marijuana al-Shehi]

Try not to load any more operating systems on your way out to the parking lot, okay?

Re:37?

[rppp01]

It's entirely possible to install almost every version of Linux on one machine. New versions of LILO eliminate the 1,024th cylinder boundary, enabling you to use up to 160GB for Linux. However, I decided to stop at around 10 versions because any more seemed redundant.

um, what is your definition of redundant? Anyone?

Re:37?

[parliboy]

um, what is your definition of redundant? Anyone?

um, what is your definition of redundant? Anyone?

Re:37?

[Idaho]

You can't name 37 OS'es? You should take a look here - sorry about the offensive domain name, but they really do have a very long list of OS'es, both old and new!

Re:37?

[Fiver-rah]

You people are being redundant and repeating yourselves.

Business Model:

[b1nd0x]

Step 1: install 37 operating operating systems on one machine
Step 2: mount everything possible in linux (not sure about partition types, inconsequential detail though), cat it all to /dev/audio. Convince moma that this is a somber reflection on the fractured nature of our decentralized, technological culture.
Step 3: Profit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re:Business Model:

[Vengie]

Yeah....we already have that exhibit.
Its called ALL OF PS1. ;)

Re:Business Model:

[drik00]

Trent, is that you? Trent? Trent Reznor??

J

Apple Rhapsody x86

[green pizza]

He should have included Apple's x86 version of Rhapsody (developer release 1 or 2 of Mac OS X from several years ago). Either that or Darwin x86, which is available from Apple's website.

Re:Apple Rhapsody x86

[Aqua OS X]

It'd be neat to see that guy toss in a PPC and a 68xxx emulator too. If did that he could be up to 50+ OSes... however I guess emulators might be thought of as "cheating."

It might be fun to try an build a modern version of one of these old Apple machines: Power Macintosh 7300/180 PC Compatible
These thing has both a PPC 604e and a Pentium 1. They could boot a PPC OS and an x86 OS at the same time. One could use a key combo to switch OSes on the fly.... they where rad :).

Re:Apple Rhapsody x86

[hype7]

One OS to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them... :)

-- james

Re:Apple Rhapsody x86

[Wolfier]

I'm about to post I can run 60+ OS with emulators alone. Technically, it is not cheating, and more amazingly, OS run with emulators can be up SIMULTANEOUSLY.

The same thing can't be said for "real" OS. LOL

Re:Apple Rhapsody x86

[evilviper]

You know, if he threw in BOCHS, he could run all the OSes SIMULTANEOUSLY!

VMWare!

[lscotte]

We do this all the time with VMWare on big GSX/ESX servers. Not that many DIFFERENT OS's, just that many of them.

He could probably count each JDK as an OS too.

Why???

[Doppler00]

He installed these?
Windows 1.01
Windows 1.03
Windows 2.03
Windows 2.10

How could you even find these versions let alone tolerate installing them? Hmm... Just imagine all the versions of Minesweeper and Solitare!

Honestly, who could possible have the time to do something like this?

Re:Why???

[egreB]

Well, since we're on to nitpicking..

Solitaire was certainly in Windows 3.0, and I'm pretty sure my 80286 had Minesweeper with its Windows install as well. Not too sure about Minesweeper. Solitaire, though, was extremly exciting to look at when all the cards bumpbed "out of the screen" when you finished. Espcially on 12MHz.

Re:Why???

[Oztun]

I think you can get three of them from this link - http://toastytech.com/guis/indexlinks.html

Re:Why???

[seizer]

Who says he found them? Maybe he actually purchased them, way back when, and kept the floppies, reverently, until such time as he might use them again.

"Squadron leader, we have pigs at 11 o'clock high" :-)

Incidentally, you can get yourself some OS/2 bits here They used to have Windows 1.01, and 2.0, but I suppose the Beast got to them. I mean, MS have got to try their best to protect their large sales volume of these products, as we enter the 21st century.

And if you're feeling really trippy, you can see some old Windows screenshots here.

Re:Why???

[spitzak]

Actually the earliest versions of Windows had "Othello" (or "Reversi") as a sample game. That of course required intelligence on the user's part, and MicroSoft apparently changed their target audience with later versions :-)

Re:Why???

[hoagieslapper]

Correct me if I am wrong here, but are Windows 1.x and Windows 2.x even operating systems? I know Windows 3.x wasn't. The OS for Windows 3.x was DOS.

Re:Why???

[cscx]

Yes, Win 3.0 shipped with Reversi and Solitaire.

Funny thing is that the version of Solitaire on my 1Ghz XP box is probably the same code that I ran Solitaire on my 386/16 with 4 MB of RAM back in the day.

The card deck-spill animation after you win used to take 10 minutes to complete. Now it takes about 0.75 sec. :D

Re:Why???

[spitzak]

I worked with even earlier versions of Windows that were sent to developers, including the tiled ones (ie 1 and 2). I remember the Reversi game well, but I can't remember if the Solitaire game was also included.

I can't find my favorite!

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is emacs?

Re:I can't find my favorite!

[The_Shadows]

Don't you mean, where is vi?

Re:I can't find my favorite!

[SquadBoy]

No Emacs is a decent OS all it is missing is a good text editor. vi OTHOH is a text editor.

Re:I can't find my favorite!

[Jason Earl]

With viper Emacs finally has a decent text editor! Emacs goodness plus vi keystrokes is a beautiful thing.

Re:I can't find my favorite!

[sinserve]

It is vi, it inserts random Ms and Hs into your text. I am typHingM thMis in viH.

Add a Mac!

[jelwell]

I've got the x86 Rhapsody Operating system somewhere around here. For those who don't know that's Apple's foray into the x86 market with the NeXt OS - now pretty much OS X.

Back around 96 or 98 I decided I needed to find a better Operating System. I put Rhapsody, BeOS, Slackware, Redhat, Debian and Win9x on my PC. I liked BeOS and Rhapsody the most, but the applications I wanted weren't there; and I didn't see a future for them either. I ended picking Redhat out of the lot.

Now adays I use OS X or Win XP at home, and Redhat on my server.
Joseph Elwell.

Patience?

[Zen Mastuh]

I couldn't sit still that long. Sure, some OS installations are more time-consuming than others, but in general I don't look forward to the interminable wait between prompts.

I'd also be curious to know how many reboots it took. I also want to know how come nobody cared enough to get William Shatner to go to this guy's house and say "What's wrong with you? Have you ever slept with a woman?".

Re:Patience?

[frohike]

I also want to know how come nobody cared enough to get William Shatner to go to this guy's house and say "What's wrong with you? Have you ever slept with a woman?".

From the article:

Were there any OSes you couldn't find? Yes. Windows 1.0. Refer to the statement on Jupiter's 7th moon in previous answer. Oh, and I couldn't find an OS that would tell me how to successfully deal with girls either.

I guess that's a no to Shatner's question. :)

Re:Patience?

[Debillitatus]

I couldn't sit still that long.

Am I the only person who finds this statement a bit incongruous coming from someone with the nick "Zen Mastuh"? ;-)

Re:Patience?

[scott1853]

This is 2002. Everything, including achieving balance between body and mind takes place in zero-time. Well, except for Slashdot posting, that takes 20 seconds.

partition table

[DrLudicrous]

Yikes! Think about how long it must have taken to partition that hard drive! Someone must have had a LOT of time on their hands...

Which reminds me...

[nizo]

of a dream I always had: to install Win 3.1.1 on my 1ghz pc, just to see how fast it would boot. Soundcard and just about everything else probably wouldn't work, but dang it would be nice to see windows start up quickly.

Alright, let me ask this.

[antis0c]

Where the hell did he get all these Operating Systems from? Not even getting into how does he have licenses for them all, but Windows 1.01? All the versions of QNX? I'm asking a serious question too, anyone know where?

Re:Alright, let me ask this.

[Aexia]

I have an early CD-ROM program(some reference) that not only runs on Windows v1.xx but includes a copy as well.

Re:Alright, let me ask this.

[MrResistor]

Well, you can download QNX from their site for free for personal use (Neutrino, anyway, I'm not sure about older versions, but I'd bet you can download QNX 4 from there as well).

Where one would find Windows 1.01, though, I have no idea. Ebay, perhaps?

Re:Alright, let me ask this.

[Oztun]

I found a page with google that looks to have windows 1.01 and QNX links.

Re:Alright, let me ask this.

[aussersterne]

I have still have both licenses and media for Windows 2.01 and 3.0 (the only version ever to run under DOSEMU), OS-9000 x86, OS/2 1.0 and OS/2 2.1, OS9/68k 2.3, TRS-DOS and some old version of SunOS, I don't even remember which, from a Sun 3 (now there was a beast). The SunOS is on a bootable QIC cartridge! I think I even have an Archive Viper 2150 somewhere that I could probably use to boot it, if I had a Sun 3. Oh, and I also have the original Mac Finder 'System' disk from a 128k Mac that cost about $3,000 back in the day. Come to think of it, I also have the Mac 128k somewhere, closeted away, though I doubt whether it runs now.

They're all just left hanging around from my own computers over the years. *shrug* That's sort of how it works, isn't it?!

37!

[Da J Rob]

In a row?

-Clerks

Re:37!

[prockcore]

Try not to install any operating systems on the way to the parking lot!

Quick! Someone call the BSA!

[Aexia]

* Windows 1.01
* Windows 1.03
* Windows 2.03
* Windows 2.10
* Windows 3.1
* Windows 95
* Windows 98 First Edition
* Windows 98 Second Edition
* Windows 98 SE Lite (not counted as separate)
* Windows Me
* Windows 2000
* Windows XP

Not only do we need to verify that he has licenses for each of those installations, I'm willing to bet he illegally transfered licenses from their original systems!

In short, this man is a terrorist who only wishes to kill each and every freedom-loving American. Arrest him now!

Re:Quick! Someone call the BSA!

[dzym]

The key word is "or". He would not have the license for all of the above, just one of the above.

Re:Quick! Someone call the BSA!

[Electrum]

The key word is "or". He would not have the license for all of the above, just one of the above.

He is only running one at a time.

Simple purpose

[theefer]

Actually he just wanted to be on Slashdot ...

What would *you* do to be on /. ? :)

Re:Simple purpose

[User 956]

What would *you* do to be on Slashdot?

I think the real question is, what would Jesus do to be on Slashdot?

Re:Simple purpose

[*xpenguin*]

I think the real question is, what would Jesus do to be on Slashdot?

Kill the trolls.

Re:Simple purpose

[namespan]

Apparently he should have installed 37 operating systems, instead of walking on water, healing people physically, saving them from sin, and rising from the dead.

Of course, he often is mentioned on slashdot, even aside from his mention by you... see these articles or comments.

See Matthew 25:34-40 for another thought or perspective, too.

Of course, you probably meant interviewed, which is something else entirely...

Re:Simple purpose

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I'd sure as hell convert, if he could kick the trolls off slashdot.

Besides, Buddha smells funny.

Re:Simple purpose

[scott1853]

Jesus won't be on slashdot because he refuses to switch from Windows to Linux. Apparently Jesus never loses his data when his Windows box crashes because he always saves. :P

Re:Simple purpose

[swankypimp]

Remember the Jesux operating system parody? Christian-themed Linux, only with "function calls and features suggesting evil and otherwise pagan ideas would be changed: abort(3), kill(1), references to "daemon" "

Teh J35U5 C|-|R15T I5 3l337, D00D!

Hmm

[Screaming Lunatic]

It's entirely possible to install almost every version of Linux on one machine... However, I decided to stop at around 10 versions because any more seemed redundant.

That's a little bit of an understatement. So how many version of Windows before it starts getting redundant?

Re:Hmm

[bartjan]

That's a little bit of an understatement. So how many version of Windows before it starts getting redundant?

1 ??

Re:Hmm

[RestiffBard]

yeah but windows needs the redundancy. :)

Re:Hmm

[scott1853]

Multiple version of Windows wouldn't be redundant. Each new version brings exciting new ways to crash it.

Win earlier than 95 were shells for DOS

[intermodal]

They weren't technically operating systems

Re:Win earlier than 95 were shells for DOS

[NineNine]

Prior to Win 95? Actually, I consider everything up to and including Win ME to be DOS-based shells.

Re:Win earlier than 95 were shells for DOS

[foonf]

All the non-NT versions of Windows still are technically DOS shells, but the boot process has been changed so that Windows loads immediately (and cannot be started from another version of DOS).

There may be a valid technical reason for it, but the main effect was to completely shut out competing DOS implementations, as Caldera argued in their lawsuit against MS. During this lawsuit they actually demonstrated a slightly-modified Windows 95 running under DR-DOS.

Re:Win earlier than 95 were shells for DOS

[Webmonger]

Actually, you could configure Win95 to boot to the dos prompt. Then you typed "win" and it booted the Windows GUI. And it was referred to as a "DOS prompt" in the Windows 95 GUI.

Yes, it's all hair-splitting, but it's pretty clear that the Windows GUI was a separate thing, just like Gnome/KDE/TWM/foo.

And that's not such a bad idea. Why not keep separate functionality separate? You could even make a version of Windows Explorer that didn't contain a web browser. Oh wait-- they already did that.

Re:Win earlier than 95 were shells for DOS

[gmarceau]

To those who have replied to intermodal : You got your definition of an OS all wrong. An OS's job is to mediate between multiple program trying to access to same ressource. That could be the disk, the memory, the ports, the printers, etc. Msdos hardly qualifies, Win3.1 is twisted and Win95 is proper.

Msdos always just barely qualified as an operating system. It had some memory layout libraries and provided some basic disk access libraries, both of which could be ignored by programs. Win3.1 added mediation of screen estate space, of the printers and of the sound card. Those were the bad old days where the high levels function, which had fairly proper mediation, were running on a non-kernel. It was the Eric-the-half-a-bee of operating systems. Painful days indeed.

With its prehemptive scheduler, Win95 introduced clock-cycle mediation. It also brought proper memory mediation (memory "protection") For the first time, Windows was providing something more than a set of ignorable library functions, which qualified it as true OS.

You will indeed find Msdos code shipping with Win95 : it's upside down. It is part of the msoldapp compatibility layer that ran 16-bits apps, and it ran them under the new 32-bits kernel. This doesn't take anything away from Win95's OS-ness.

Re:Win earlier than 95 were shells for DOS

[Webmonger]

Depends where you looked. The ver command might have identified it as Windows 95, but the Windows GUI referred to the "DOS prompt" and "Full-screen DOS mode" and used the MSDOS icon for commandline programs. I've never noticed any mention of DOS in the Win2k gui.

The point is not that it was either Windows or DOS. The point is, it was confused.

Re:Win earlier than 95 were shells for DOS

[gmarceau]

According to Microsoft's own docs :

• Preemptive multitasking of 32-bit Windows-based applications: Win95: Yes WinNt: Yes
  
• Runs 16-bit Windows-based applications: Win95: Yes WinNt:Yes
  
• Preemptive multitasking for 16-bit Windows-based applications Win95:No WinNt:Yes
  

The compatibility layer which ran old 16-bits apps (winoldapp) wasn't preemptive, but the main kernel certainly was.

Here is his OS list

[Brigadier]

Dos 6.22 w/Dosshell Dos 7.0 DR-Dos FreeDos OS/2 warp IV SkyOS Windows Menu: Windows 1.01 Windows 2.03 Windows 3.1 Windows 95 Windows 98 First Edition Windows 98 SE (2 installations - Main, Lite) Windows ME Windows XP Pro Windows 2000 Pro Unix Menu: AtheOS Syllable OS Aos (Bluebottle)/Oberon 2.3.6 BeOS 5 Personal Edition BeOS 5 w/ Mac skin BeOS 5.03 Developer Edition QNX 6.1 QNX 6.2 FreeBSD OpenBSD NetBSD Minix LInux Menu: Storm 2000 Immunix Conectiva Libranet Vector JBLinux Slackware Trustix Red Hat 7.2 Mandrake 8.2 Debian Dos Window Managers Menu: Tandy Deskmate Desktop 2 Dos94 Dosstart Egress Gaze Glance IconDOs Iconshell QBfos99 Iconshell 2.1 xgui 3 xgui 4 MAcShell MilleniumOS XTos

Re:Smooth

[mmol_6453]

Run Win2000 in VMWare under Linux.

Or run Linux in VMWare under Win2000.

37 not quite...

[DjMd]

Aos|Oberon 2.3.6
DrDOS 7.2
FreeDos 7
MS DOS 5.0
MS DOS 7
OS/2
QubeOS
SkyOS

Linux menu
Conectiva
Debian
Immunix
JBLinux
Libranet
Mandrake
RedHat
Slackware
Storm
Vector

Unix menu
AtheOS 0.3.7
BeOS 5 Personal Edition
BeOS 5.0.3 Developer Edition
FreeBSD 4.4
Minix 2.2
NetBSD 1.5
OpenBSD 2.9
QNX RTP 6.0 (hosted)
QNX RTP 6.1 (dedicated)
QNX Neutrino OS 6.2
SyllableOS 0.4.0

Windows menu
Windows 1.01
Windows 1.03
Windows 2.03
Windows 2.10
Windows 3.1
Windows 95
Windows 98 First Edition
Windows 98 Second Edition
Windows 98 SE Lite (not counted as separate)
Windows Me
Windows 2000
Windows XP

Ok I make the list realisticly at 28-ish. I count all the DOS's, Linux distro count as one, 9 Unix's (verses 11 listed), and 10 windows (all win98 as one)...
You can argue beyond that, but 28 is still impressive... No WinNT?

Re:37 not quite...

[sharkey]

I count all the DOS's, Linux distro count as one, 9 Unix's (verses 11 listed), and 10 windows (all win98 as one)..

Well, since Windows 1-Me are DOS at their heart, you probably shouldn't count them as separate, either. Only 2 in that list are not running on top of DOS.

Re:37 not quite...

[nick_davison]

Windows menu
Windows 1.01
Windows 1.03
Windows 2.03
Windows 2.10
Windows 3.1

Windows 1-3x were not OSs, you had to have a DOS OS installed and boot in to DOS before running Windows - they were systems that ran over the top. That's excluding 95 still technically working that way but making you boot in to Windows then exit out (dressed up as logging out) to DOS.

It's the equivalent of calling RedHat two different OSs because it comes with Gnome and KDE.

Re:37 not quite...

[powerlinekid]

Actually 27... SyllableOS 0.4.0 is a port of AtheOS 3.7 and really isn't all that different.26 if you count the two similiar BeOSs as one.

Re:37 not quite...

[rabidcow]

Windows 1-3x were not OSs, you had to have a DOS OS installed and boot in to DOS before running Windows

This alone does not make Windows a shell running on DOS. An OS may boot from another OS. You can start Linux from DOS, that doesn't make it any less of an OS. (even if it *only* booted from DOS)

The key is whether Windows used DOS functions while it was running or provided its own. Win95 avoided using 16-bit drivers as much as possible. Since DOS is entirely 16-bit, I think that at least begins to qualify it as a separate OS.

Make that 27...

[djrogers]

11 Linux distros - 1 OS. Still, no less of an accomplishment!

Mmmm... scrollable bootloader

[silvaran]

Imagine having to go through all those at bootup! I can see extending the bootloader to provide regex searches.

Redundant?? Yikes!

[Myriad]

It's entirely possible to install almost every version of Linux on one machine. New versions of LILO eliminate the 1,024th cylinder boundary, enabling you to use up to 160GB for Linux. However, I decided to stop at around 10 versions because any more seemed redundant. (Emphesis mine)

This must be a use of the word "redundant" I have never heard before.

Re:Redundant?? Yikes!

[madajb]

It's entirely possible to install almost every version of Linux on one machine. New versions of LILO eliminate the 1,024th cylinder boundary, enabling you to use up to 160GB for Linux. However, I decided to stop at around 10 versions because any more seemed redundant. (Emphesis mine)
This must be a use of the word "redundant" I have never heard before.

====
Indeed, and a spelling of Emphasis I've never seen before.

-ajb

Re:And not a one of them...

[Qrlx]

VICE, anyone?

VICE is a Versatile Commodore Emulator, i.e. a program that runs on a Unix, MS-DOS, Win95/NT, OS/2, Acorn RISC OS or BeOS machine and executes programs intended for the old 8-bit Commodore computers. The current version emulates the C64, the C128, the VIC20, all the PET models (except the SuperPET 9000, which is out of line anyway) and the CBM-II (aka C610).

Stares in horrified silence...

[FyRE666]

Now I like wasting my time on technology as much as the next geek, but really! The words "more", "must", "out" and "get" spring to mind here...

The Most Expensive C64 Ever

[Myriad]

I'll have to check out this emulator! Hopefully it's better then some of the ones that used be out there...

I tried one a few years ago that scared me away from them: it sucessfully began emulating a C64. However, my brand new (at the time), very expensive (at the time), Pentium 100 didn't want to STOP being a C64. No matter how I tried to quit or reboot it kept coming up as a C64.

'Great' I think to myself, 'I have the worlds most expensive Commodore 64... and I don't even have a 1541 floppy.' :)

Re:An attempt to name 37 operating systems

[403Forbidden]

I saw this on TheScreenSavers awhile back. If i recall he had multiple XOSL (www.xosl.org) bootloaders and it worked in chains.. one XOSL would boot another which would boot another etc. until you got to the OS of choice

The OSes he booted were not all unique kernels, there were about 10 different linux distros if i remember right, and Win 1.0-XP i belive.

What? No GEOS 1.0

[nickgrieve]

This *EXTREMELY RARE* operating system was the first release for the IBM-PC. Previously, different versions of GEOS had done very well with the Commodore 64 and Apple 2 line. This GUI-based OS was primarily used in businesses and schools, and seldom saw its way into the hands of the public. This was the very first version that was ever released for PC users. The welcome screen had three buttons, for the Appliances level, Professional level, and the DOS Room. In the first level, the user is greeted by large buttons for the calculator, Rolodex, planner, and notepad. These four apps run in full screen, and there is no multitasking or task-switching. In the Professional level, the user is exposed to all the applications, which can run in windows and multitask with one another. The screen could be filled with a background (wallpaper in Windows lingo) for some fancy decoration. The accessories included Clock, Calculator, GeoBanner, GeoComm, GeoDex, GeoPlanner, Notepad, and Scrapbook. The major applications were GeoManager, GeoDraw, GeoWrite, and Preferences. There was also an icon for the client software to America Online. (At that time, it was the only way to connect to AOL). The user interface was Motif, and a dark cyan color scheme was used. In the DOS Room, a button for the DOS prompt was the default entry. There was a utility for creating new buttons for running other DOS applications, and there was a broad selection of icons to choose from, including both generic and branded icons. This version was later followed by versions 2.0, and New Deal School Suite '98.

Re:What? No GEOS 1.0

[aussersterne]

Didn't the Amstrad PC's that were incredibly popular for a few years ship with GEOS? That would make it not-so-very-rare-after-all...

I imagine "rare" would probably be Xenix on 8" floppy or something for some of those old monster Tandy systems...

Re:What? No GEOS 1.0

[Kallahar]

Geos was as much of an OS as Win3.x was, being that it just sat on top of DOS. Perhaps a moot distinction, but I only ran geos (or windows) when I needed to use a particular program that ran under that GUI.

For example, Geos had the best tetris game I've ever played on the PC :)

Travis

Re:What? No GEOS 1.0

[duffbeer703]

Not as rare as you might think. Most PC's sold in Sears, Leachmere and JC Penney (yes they sold pc's) shipped with GEOS for awhile.

Re:What? No GEOS 1.0

[YrWrstNtmr]

I actually bought GEOWorks as an add-on on top of DOS...around 89/90 or so. Excellent shell 'OS' of the day. Probably still have the 720kb install disks around

Beautiful print drivers. Unbelievable print quality, even from a Panasonic 9-pin. I did some work at home, brought it in to work, and the boss asked "WHAT did you print this on?"

With the right marketing (and being as much of an ass as Uncle Bill seems to be), this coulda been a contenda.

Re:What? No GEOS 1.0

[shepd]

I have that rotting on some disks somewhere...

It was renamed GeoWorks in '92.

It had MASSIVE share problems with DOS 4.01 (which was was what included with the 286 it ran on).

Nice GUI in general, though, but certainly not an OS. Had the coolest support for Dot-Matrix printers I've ever seen (it could get a full 244 DPI from one, if you had the time to wait).

Memories... precious memories.

Re:What? No GEOS 1.0

[stuffman64]

What about Tandy Deskmate? I used to run this on my 1000HX (upgraded to 640k RAM!). It was kinda slow (ok, maybe that was just my sub-10 MHz processor), but included many useful apps. This was a long time ago (I was only like 8 at the time), but I think this was just another DOS shell. And IIRC, it would only run on Tandy computers.

Re:What? No GEOS 1.0

[edwdig]

That's because if you've actually used GEOS, you won't find MS Office very easy to use. Most people I've shown GEOS to have found the GEOS apps much easier to use. The only people who haven't disagreed are the ones that'll bitch the slightest thing isn't 100% like MS Office.

Re:What? No GEOS 1.0

[edwdig]

Err, that should be the only people who haven't agreed.

Windows 1.0 screenshots

[stefanlasiewski]

For a trip down memory lane (ok, I'm lying, my memory lane begins at Windows 3.0), here's a set of Windows screenshots, starting at 1.0 up to Win XP.

http://www.infosatellite.com/news/2001/10/a25100 1w indowshistory_screenshots.html

Interesting how similar Windows 2.0 looks to Windows XP, and many other GUI environments...

Re:Windows 1.0 screenshots

[opusman]

It's interesting to see that "apps" like Notepad and Paint don't seem to have been developed since 1985 :)

Re:Windows 1.0 screenshots

[jquirke]

Odd - in this screenshot of Windows XP, the System Properties dialog is showing the version as "Windows 2000 v5.01.2428" - a beta?

Re:Windows 1.0 screenshots

[Peyna]

Isn't the point of notepad to be as slim as possible and still functional? It's not meant to be the VI of windows, it's meant to be a simple text editor.

Re:An attempt to name 37 operating systems

[sphealey]

UCSD p-System (don't think it can run from a hard disk though)

CP/M-86

Concurrent CP/M

sPh

From the second link

[fobbman]

Were there any OSes you couldn't find?

Yes. Windows 1.0...Oh, and I couldn't find an OS that would tell me how to successfully deal with girls either.

You've just geeked 37 OS'es onto your PC. Just open your bedroom door (in your Mom and Dad's house) and wait for the babes to come stampeding in.

Theoretically...

[MsGeek]

...I could do this if I wanted to. All I would need would be more hard drives and more drive docks. Here's a peek at what I've been doing.

What No MS BOB

[haplo21112]

Ok so it was just a pretty wrapper for the OS...but het so are DOS mindow managers....

I did 24 os's

[os2fan]

I did 19 different operating systems on the 486. It's actually quite useful to fire up some specific version of dos to twinkle some version-specific bug. Here's my list.

The installations of these were heavily stripped, because both msdos and pcdos will run the pcdos 7.0 utilities, along with a scattering of other utilities.

System commander provided the menu.

msdos 5.00 6.00 6.20 6.21 6.22 7.00b
pcdos 5.00 5.02 6.00 6.10 6.30 7.00 2000
drdos 6.00b 7.00
mswin 95a
os/2 3.00 4.00
nt 4.00

OS/2 3.0 was heavily stripped to 9MB total, it was used for burning cdroms.

On top of these, I ran different operating system extenders: These

dosshell [a hacked win30 standard mode]
win30
win31
win311
deskView
qemm

The other configurations were the main work client (pcdos 2000), a guest system for my mother (pcdos 2000 + win3.11 running a network install.

XOSL obviously not planning ahead

[prockcore]

XOSL has a 24 boot-item limit and a 56 partition limit, forcing me to install more than one dedicate installation.

"24 boot items ought to be enough for everybody!" - Gill Bates, XOSL Developer, 1980

How about virtual machines?

[antdude]

What's the record of OSes in VMware, VirtualPC, etc.? ;)

Redundancy???

[SoCalChris]

It's entirely possible to install almost every version of Linux on one machine. New versions of LILO eliminate the 1,024th cylinder boundary, enabling you to use up to 160GB for Linux. However, I decided to stop at around 10 versions because any more seemed redundant.

He puts 57 operating systems on one computer, and is worried about redundancy...

Re:no hardware limits??

[skt]

I think that is what makes this so impressive.. people saying that this could be easily done are out of their minds. From the article, he mentions getting the hardware to work in each operating system as well, which is quite an accomplishment for such a broad range of systems. And.. of course they all boot which takes quite a bit of planning (sector limitations, partition sizes, swap or no swap?, etc). From the MaxPC article, he says that the project took about a year for him to complete.

Planning issues

[div_2n]

He had six IDE hard drives. As the article states, some OS's have severe temper tantrums if you try to install them past a certain cylinder on the HD (1024). NT can't exist on the same physical drive as 2000. I am not sure if the same is true for XP and 2000 on the same drive.

My guess is that given these limitations, it might have been impossible to add NT even if he wanted to.

Re:Planning issues

[acoustix]

XP and 2000 can be installed on the same physical drive.

I have 98, 2000, and XP Pro (installed in that order) on my drive.

Re:Planning issues

[richie2000]

NT can't exist on the same physical drive as 2000.

Yes, it can. You can't have their system directories on the same partition, though. Same thing with 2k and XP or NT and XP. Or NT, 2k and XP.

That said, I miss DOS 6.22 and Gentoo from his list, not to mention the Apple internal OS X for i386, MS Longhorn, SunOS 4.1.3 (Sunview rocks!), Solaris, NeXTStep and the Amiga Digital Environment, although the QNX Neutrino kernel probably is a good start there. Hm. Were there ever a VMS/OpenVMS version for the i386?

My workstations typically multiboot at least three OSes, sometimes more if I'm currently migrating; DOS (6.22/98SE), Linux (Gentoo) and Win32 (NT/2k/XP).

Re:Planning issues

[Lozzer]

NT can exist on the same physical device as 2000. To do it install 2000 near the end of your disk. blank the partition table, install NT at the start of your disk, upgrade to sp6 and then reinstate the partition table. Et voila... (Guess who had to do this recently...)

Re:Planning issues

[jonadab]

> > NT can't exist on the same physical drive as 2000.
> Yes, it can.

He's using partition hiding, which allows things to exist on the
same drive that otherwise couldn't exist on the same system at
all -- different versions of Windows 9x for example. (I've been
using PowerBoot for this, but I guess I'll check out the xosl...)
That makes this issue moot for him.

> That said, I miss ... MS Longhorn
Is that available yet? I thought they said 2005 and were
being optimistic as usual?
> SunOS 4.1.3, Solaris, NeXTStep
These are mentioned in the interview, but he ended up not
getting them to work. Solaris he specifically listed (along
with NT3/4 and Plan9) as being too picky about hardware, by
which I think he means too picky about the hardware he happens
to have. His video card is less than ideal for a multiboot
scenerio; a 2D Matrox card would have done better, I think.
That was his problem with Plan9 at least. His motherboard
may also have been an issue for some systems.

> Were there ever a VMS/OpenVMS version for the i386?
I don't believe so. I had to get myself a Vax in order
to have VMS in my bedroom. (I settled for a used one,
though, so it didn't cost that much. They seem to be
a glut on the used market, for some reason.)

> My workstations typically multiboot at least three OSes
I can count DOS6, Win95, WinMe, RedHat 6, Mandrake 8, QNX, and the
BeOS, so I say I have seven versions of five OSes. I've also
dualbooted Windows 98SE with Mandrake, on another system, and WinXP
Home with Mandrake, on _another_ system. I figure that's enough to
qualify me as an experienced multibooter, but obviously I'm not a
record-setter like this guy. I'm looking into Plan9. I was unable
so far to get BSD installed (tried the three major free distros),
but I think the problem may have been a lack of understanding on
my part, in terms of how the BSD partitioning stuff works. If
anyone knows of a good tutorial on that...

Oh, and I don't have six (!) drives to play with like this guy does;
I'm sure I'd have more OSes installed if I had that kind of space
to play with. I've just got a 4GB primary master and a 30GB primary
slave. I used to have an ancient Debian (old enough, it didn't come
with X11), but I toasted it to make space for RedHat some time ago,
when I only had the one drive.

If I get a third drive, I want to do BSD (Free, Net, or Open,
whichever is easiest to get installed) and Gentoo (yes, over a
dialup; I have patience). I've also put thought into trying
Solaris.x86; if the current version comes out under that hobbyist
license program where you only pay the one-time-fee for the media
that's about the same cost as Windows, I might try it out. It
would be nice to put Solaris on my resume...

I have to agree with the interviewee's assessment of BeOS; it's a
multibooter's dream. Like DOS, it blissfully ignores any partition it
doesn't understand and needs no drivers for anything. Like Linux, it
can mount most common types of filesystems. (Okay, ext2 is readonly,
but NTFS is readonly in Linux.) Also like Linux, it can be booted
from basically anywhere (nth logical partition on the nth logical
drive, past the 1024th cyllinder, disk image stored on any FAT16 or
FAT32 partition you like, wherever). Back to being like DOS, it can
be transplanted by copying, or by transplanting the drive to a
different system, and will Just Work with any supported hardware
configuration. It's really a shame about what happened to the
company; the OS is missing some basic features (such as the ability
to change colour preferences globally and have all apps that use the
standard widgets follow them) and because of the collapse of the
company no longer supports modern hardware, but there are a lot of
things other systems can learn from the BeOS. I wish the design
people for both Microsoft and the Gnome and KDE projects would sit
down with it and play for a few hours some time. Maybe Apple will;
you know they know about it, because they thought about _buying_ it,
and then picked NeXT instead.

Re:Planning issues

[richie2000]

and Gentoo (yes, over a dialup; I have patience)

You can, if you have access to a fast link elsewhere, get stuff using emerge -f (as in fetchonly) to get all the files you need to build the system at a later date, with no Internet access.

Or do what I do when I build firewalls - I stick a small (1-2GB) IDE disk in a removable cradle, boot the Gentoo CD in VMWare and do the full install in a window on my Athlon workstation instead of trying to do it on the P100 target system.

but NTFS is readonly in Linux.

Kinda, sorta. There is write support, but the warnings on that option are scary. :-)

And I don't think NT3/4 is very picky on hardware, the main problem I can see is IDE drivers (he can go VGA mode for the graphics), but IDE should work in fall-back mode (or whatever it's called, all IDE chips I've seen has worked out-of-the-box with no special drivers but if you want to start setting DMA and stuff, you need the 'real' stuff).

Re:Planning issues

[richie2000]

And carry them home on a floppy?

You have a T1 at work but not a single CD-burner?

Well, you could get VMWare and install Gentoo in that while working with the rest of the multiboot computer. I do this all the time for building firewalls with Gentoo.

Or, if you have access to a box at work that's not used for anything critical, you could stick a hard drive in that and install Gentoo to it and then just lug it back home.

For installing over the phone line, it's not just patience (even if it would quite literally take days) but cost. I don't know where you are and what kind of rates you would get dialing up to an ISP, but I can easily imagine a hundred hours for a typical desktop install.

Do you have space in the router to add more disk? If so, use it as a server. I have triple systems both at home and at work, a P100-class box as a routing firewall, a P3 550/700 system as server and an Athlon workstation - same setup in both places. Everything I have is duplicated on the servers (or will be, I'm currently in the process of migrating the main server from RH 7.1 to Gentoo) and nothing is stored on the workstations except some temp files like captured video and so on. I have also tried to keep the servers almost identical (same mobos for starters) to facilitate management and recovery. If I b0rk up a workstation with an overenthusiastic upgrade or install, it doesn't matter. All my files are on the servers anyway.

Re:Planning issues

[richie2000]

CD burners are fairly new on the market, by comparison

Well, I have had, or had access to, burners since 1996 and although T1 or equivalents probably was available back then, not many people had the use for them. At the time, we were 50 employees sharing a 256k leased line, recently upgraded from a 64k...

All dialup ISPs I know about charge a flat monthly fee for unmetered access.

Cool. Where I live (Sweden), the 'unmetered access' concept does not exist except for ADSL or leased lines. Dialups cost per minute, be it POTS, ISDN or mobile.

Anyway - in that case, I can see the reason for doing a Gentoo install over the phone - there are some howtos, anecdotes, methods and metoos at the Gentoo forums if you want some more input before starting your dialup adventure.

Re:Planning issues

[richie2000]

not something we ever figured a normal person would own.

It was at work, I burned the master copy of TFS Gateway that got sent off for manufacturing. A 4x SCSI Yamaha with not enough buffers.

And here I had you figured for UK (where local phone calls cost per minute -- what is _that_ all about).

Same here. It's just a few years since they went to a flat model for all calls, before that we had different rates for local, regional (all adjacent area codes) and long distance. We now have the same rates for local as long distance (just under a cent a minute evenings and weekends, double that on workdays). I've never really understood why the US phone companies started offering unmetered local calls, was it just to increase the long distance rates or what? I haven't seen anything in the constitution about the right to local calls... Bare arms, yes. Unmetered phones, not a word.

POTS I'm not familiar with; almost all dialup here in the US is PPP.

POTS=Plain Old Telephone System, ie analog phone lines. Sorry 'bout that.

37 OSes but none help with the ladies..

[verch]

So many jokes..

Brain overloading!

Anyway, my mission is clear. How could anyone possibly stop when they were so close to 42?!

Seen this on Tech TV a while ago

[qurob]

This guy was on Tech TV the other day.

http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/answerstips/sto ry/0,24330,3399433,00.html

There's a link to the article

Interesting observations

[dh003i]

Really, what's the point of wasting your hard-drive like that?

Wow, he put all those versions of Windows on it and it didn't explode?

BeOS? Huh? What? Oh, that's the road kill MS ran over using their dark force monopoly powers.

Linx? Huh? What? Where? Hasn't MS that group of infidels yet?

MS to Richard Robbins: thank you very much for creating a list of all the enemies we need to crush!

US government to Richard Robbins: Your running QNX on your computer? That must make you a terrorist, since QNX can be used to control nuclear warheads or nuclear reactors!

BSA to Richard Robbins: What? You can't find the license for Windows 1.01? That'll be 500,000 dollars, and you'll have to remove all those non-windows OS' from your computer, and sign a deal with MS stating you'll only buy MS software in the future.

Re:Can you spot the reference?

[IIRCAFAIKIANAL]

Christ, everyone is joking about redundancy - this must be the 37th joke about 37 and clerks in a row ;)

Bruce Springsteen

[Alsee]

37 systems nothing on.
__________________

I bought a bourgeois house in the Hollywood hills
With a truckload of hundred thousand dollar bills
Man came by to hook up my ISP
We settled in for the night my baby and me
We switched 'round and 'round 'til half-past dawn
There was thirty-seven systems and nothin' on

Well now home entertainment was my baby's wish
So I hopped into town for a satellite dish
I tied it to the top of my Japanese car
I came home and I pointed it out into the stars
A message came back from the great beyond
There's thirty-seven systems and nothin' on

Well we might'a made some friends with some billionaires
We might'a got all nice and friendly
If we'd made it upstairs
All I got was a note that said "Bye-bye John
Our love is thirty-seven systems and nothin' on"

So I bought a .44 magnum it was solid steel cast
And in the blessed name of Elvis well I just let it blast
'Til my 'puter lay in pieces there at my feet
And they busted me for disturbin' the almighty peace
Judge said "What you got in your defense son?"
"Thirty-seven systems and nothin' on"
I can see by your eyes friend you're just about gone
Thirty-seven channels and nothin' on...
Thirty-seven channels and nothin'

-

Funny....

[phunhippy]

Out of all the OS's he is runnning... He's not running GNU/HURD :)

Funny, he missed a HUGE one

[gosand]

I didn't see GNU/Linux anywhere in the list. Linux is a kernel, not an operating system.

Doesn't this guy read Slashdot!?

Re:no hardware limits??

[Graspee_Leemoor]

" All x86 CPUs are backwards compatible."

Not true, since there are assembly routines to correctly identify every model of x86 cpu.

Although it would be very bad of me I technically could write a program that crashed if you ran it on anything later than a 486 (or a 386, or a pentium 2 etc. etc.).

graspee

Re:Only *one* OS/2??!

[os2fan]

You forget:

OS/2 3.0 for Windows
OS/2 3.1 [Warp connect]

Re:An attempt to name 37 operating systems

[DEBEDb]

Forgot Amiga OS, and the great NeXTSTEP.
Then, of course, how about MINIX, TOPS, etc.

Why not under VM?

[bunyip]

I'd be truly impressed if he had all 37 different operating systems running simultaneously in separate virtual machines!

Alan.

Old Windows Licenses

[Jack Admiral]

I think Microsoft allows the use of old Windows versions if you purchased a license of the newest version. For example, if you bought Windows XP Home, you could use, instead, any version from Windows 3.1 to Windows ME. You can't use Windows 2000 Pro since its upgrade path is Windows XP Pro.

Re:An attempt to name 37 operating systems

[langed]

IIRC, EMACS can be run as its own OS as well. Granted, it's not done much, but it is possible.

And, there's a great OS called Oberon (yeah, there's a programming language of the same name--from the same people too) but this beast required a special, rather expensive and obscure card. On an 8-bit card for an 8086 or 80286 came an array of anywhere from 4 to 8 processors. It was one of the first true multitasking OSes available--well before PC hardware really supported it.

Personally, I was proud when I had 8 OSes installed in rather small partitions on my 1.2GB drive. (Hey, 1.2GB was "big" back around '95 or so.... :)
I used a third-party bootloader called "BootIt". It had the ability to create up to 10 partitions of different types, didn't have any problems getting around that 1024cyl barrier, and was capable of booting any OS I threw at it--even the MS products were able to boot from logical partitions, even well past the 1024th cylinder!

From a technical standpoint, when I read "37 OSes, 1 PC", I thought "Yeah, how many partitions, and what bootloader?" After all, there's a bit of a fixed limit of only 4 partitions in a partition table.... But BootIt got around that by storing the actual partition info in its own partition, and wiping out the partition info in the table, rewriting it just before booting the relevent OS (and unhiding the related logical/extended partitions as well.)

Theoretically, with a nice 20GB drive, I could have pulled the same stunt with BootIt--it was also capable of booting itself.

From the article:

If you count my 18 DOS window managers, I have a total of 57 operating systems on my PC.

Well, if you count QuarterDeck's DesqView, you can throw in a whole new mix of multiple versions of DOS, Win 2.x, and Win 3.x--and you can even use it like I do--I put DesqView on a spare box an ran a Win3.1 version of IE 5 on it. I found it to be a great way to get IE "running" on linux. (I have a friend who said he wouldn't switch unless he could keep his Internet Explorer. Boy, converting Windows zealots can be kinda rough! :)
Okay, and it felt a little satisfying--like a slap in the face of the great, evil Empire of Microsoft. Make the two platforms interoperate, somehow, even when they go out of their way to prevent it. It's one of my favorite--and frustrating--challenges.

And, coming back to the article again, you can count these new permutations separately:

• DesqView
• DesqView+Dos3+Dos4 (setver.exe didn't come with DOS until 5.0)
• DesqView+Dos5+Win3.1+WinS extensions

Oh, and if this guy really wanted to get his hands dirty, he could start rolling out his own OS; that has been a bit of a hobby for some of us underchallenged college students. :)

And finally, one more note--I haven't seen the obligatory V2OS reference on here yet... As of around V0.89, it can be installed to a hard disk. :)

BIOS restriction

[kasperd]

There can be only four primary partitions on one hard drive, or three primary partitions and one extended partition. It's a BIOS restriction and there is only one (messy) way around it.

That is simply not true. The BIOS does not even know the concept of partitions. There is nothing in the BIOS mandating a particular partition format, neither that harddisks should be partitioned and floppydisks should not.

With a minor change of the OS you could use the raw harddisk as a single medium and have 10 primary partitions on your floppydisks.

But the required change of the OS is the real problem. You simply need a partition table format supported by all your OSes. And a lot of the OSes only supports the original format with four primary partitions one of which can optionally be split into a number of logical partitions. On my Linux only system I seriously consider switching to another partition format to overcome this limit, but for a multiboot it is not an option.

The article has a pointer to a way to overcome this limit, the trick is to use a completely different partition table format elsewhere on the disk, and generate the partition table in the MBR on every boot with only partitions needed for the particular OS. If done right you can even make some of the OSes use the new partition table format natively. So you could in theory let your Linux systems access all the partitions without even reading the table in the MBR. I don't know if that works with this partition manager, but it would be possible.

This guy is asking for trouble

[PsyQ]

In the interview he said, "Most Linux and Unix systems are open source, and therefore free."

That's dangerous territory you're stepping on, boy.

Why not HarrixOS too ??

[MeerCat]

An easy 38th with this - the only OS written in QBasic !
As enthusiastically reviewed by NTK

Re:2 Operating Systems

[WebMasterJoe]

I cant even get two to work on my PC. Several times I've tried and it just goes a bit wobbly.

Can you put Win95, Dos, Win98 on the same disk and not cause havoc?

Good luck. I can't even install one of the above without causing havoc!

Re:funnier than hell...

[Doppler00]

I don't usually reply to AC's, but doing something like installing 37 OS's is a waste of time. Not so much that I'm against technology and learning new things, but I think people should focus their effots on things that would be profitable like say mastering the Java programming language or C++. I could easily learn to install all those different OS's but I have better things to do. Learning to install archaic OS's wouldn't help much on my resume :)

VMWare?

[tweakt]

Buy VMware and not only have 37 operating systems, but run several simultaneously.

Re:no hardware limits??

[geekoid]

"...I technically could write a program that crashed if ..."
a-HA Graspee_Leemoor is Bill Gates!

Re:An attempt to name 37 operating systems

[WWWWolf]

I found it to be a great way to get IE "running" on linux.

Heh. Know what I did?

I have Win98SE on one partition, and Linux on other. Once I had to change preferences on a Hotmail account while I was in Linux, and Hotmail worked perfectly in Mozilla except for the preferences. So, due to some odd inspiration, I typed wine 'c:\Ohjelmatiedostot\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe'. The program started up pretty quickly, complained that it couldn't find privacy settings and asked me to check them if I had time, and then just ran with no problems, apart of a few toolbar buttons that were black. Considering the amount of "it's integrated in the OS" stuff that MS spewed out about Win98, I found this whole experience quite jaw-dropping. =)

Nahhh.

[IPFreely]

I think the real question is, what would Jesus do to be on Slashdot?

Kill the trolls.

No, he'd forgive the trolls. That's probably why most people here are athiest.