6 ms·

Fifty years of the personal computer operating system

126 points by jnord 3y ago

richard_shelton 3y ago
I hope someone will write an article about Gary Kildall's achievements in theory of compilation. For us, compiler writers, he is a legendary figure.
- wglb 3y ago
  I have a copy of his paper at U of W titled "A Code Synthesis filter for basic block optimization" 72-3-01. The code behind the paper was written in XPL.
  - wglb 3y ago
    Further, his work in that area is referenced in other compiler-related books such as Flow Analysis of Computer Programs by Matthew S. Hect.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Interesting, I've followed topics about Kildall for years but never knew about this. Cool. EDIT: referenced paper is here: https://haoxintu.github.io/files/1-A%20Unified%20Approach%20to%20Global%20Program%20Optimization.pdf https://haoxintu.github.io/files/1-A%20Unified%20Approach%20...
pjmlp 3y ago
$100 (base OS + bare bones devtools) + $90 (for having the confort of Macros) + $75 (debuging beyond text output) + $75 (for a proper code formatter) = $340 in 1978. Which are around $1,628.73 in today's money, plus hardware costs, so no wonder that many of us would just stick with the base install and make do with what was available. Example, I never had an Assembler for Timex 2068, rather painfully translated opcodes into DATA segments, or used a hexdump editor that appeared in some computer magazine as one of those type-in examples.
- zwieback 3y ago
  Yes, stuff was ridiculously expensive back then. I was lucky that my dad bought an Apple ][ for home use but none of my friends could afford anything like that. All our software was pirated or we wrote it ourselves. I have fond memories of my youth in the 8 bit era but this is the golden age of home computing, right now, and it keeps getting better.
  - musicale 2y ago
    > my dad bought an Apple ][ for home use but none of my friends could afford anything like that Apple's pricing hasn't changed that much. ;-) > Introductory price: US$1,298 (equivalent to $6,530 in 2023) source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II
- ghaff 3y ago
  Basically, dabbling in PCs used to be really expensive relative to today. ((The details matter of course) but basically a PC and software in the early eighties was many thousands of dollars in today's money.
  - justin66 3y ago
    An awful lot of other expenses were a lot cheaper, so computer stuff wasn't quite so extravagant for a working person to splurge on as it might seem. The defining characteristic of early users was curiosity, not wealth.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Depends where you lived. The "other expenses" were mostly housing in expensive areas of the country.
      - justin66 3y ago
        If areas with more expensive housing were less likely to have a PC, that’s not a trend that I ever noticed.
uticus 3y ago
> "Together with his invention of the BIOS (Basic Input Output System), Kildall's operating system allowed a microprocessor-based computer to communicate with a disk drive storage unit and provided an important foundation for the personal computer revolution." (IEEE milestone plaque cited in article) The whole idea of an OS as an important thing is debatable. For example: > The operating system is another concept that is curious. Operating systems are dauntingly complex and totally unnecessary. It’s a brilliant thing that Bill Gates has done in selling the world on the notion of operating systems. It’s probably the greatest con game the world has ever seen. > An operating system does absolutely nothing for you. As long as you had something—a subroutine called disk driver, a subroutine called some kind of communication support, in the modern world, it doesn’t do anything else. (Chuck Moore, interview in "Masterminds of Programming", 2009)
- xnorswap 3y ago
  That sounds like nonsense. The idea that a stable API provides no value is contrary to all the evidence. Look at graphics APIs like DirectX and look at what happened when jQuery was released for more evidence that having a stable API that covers disparate collections of hardware (or browser) APIs, provides vast amount of value. The idea that an operating system providing a stable API over different computers is something that doesn't provide value is hogwash.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    It's more than just a stable API across different computers, though that's a huge deal. It's also code that I don't have to write. I don't have to write the disk drivers. I don't have to write the keyboard driver. I don't have to write the mouse driver. I don't have to write the screen driver. I can build what I'm trying to build on top of that, without worrying about all of that detail.
    - uticus 3y ago
      Not disagreeing (completely) with you, but worth pointing out the very next question in the interview I quoted above looks like this: > What about device support? > Chuck: You have a subroutine for each device. That’s a library, not an operating system. Call the ones you need or load the ones you need. ...for sure it's a departure from the common way of doing things, at least. And it's almost impossible to imagine, today's generation would have to look at retro-computing to see something akin to the idea [0] [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64#BASIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64#BASIC [1] https://dfarq.homeip.net/commodore-64-operating-system/ https://dfarq.homeip.net/commodore-64-operating-system/
thecodeboy 3y ago
For those who don't know, Gary Kildall was also a presenter in the PBS TV show "Computer Chronicles". [1] I've been enjoying watching episodes of this show I found on YouTube. [2] [1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Chronicles https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Chronicles [2] - https://m.youtube.com/@ComputerChroniclesYT https://m.youtube.com/@ComputerChroniclesYT
guyzero 3y ago
Headquartered in Pacific Grove? Wild. The alternate history of Silicon Valley being the Salinas Valley instead of Santa Clara valley.
- krallja 3y ago
  Silicon Valley is so named because of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, Fairchild Semiconductor, and Intel. Shockley moved from NJ to Palo Alto in 1956 to care for his ailing mother.
nsxwolf 3y ago
The article mentions Gary died in an accident, which I recall reading elsewhere was that he fell and hit his head in a brawl at a biker bar.
- jetrink 3y ago
  > Seattle Times: Computer Pioneer's Death Probed -- Kildall Called Possible Victim Of Homicide > Kildall was injured at the Franklin Street Bar & Grill on July 8 but refused medical treatment. He was taken to a hospital the following day and released. But he was readmitted Sunday and died the following day. > Kildall could have died either from a blow to the head or from hitting his head as he fell, said Sollecito. > The first description of the incident at the bar, he said, was that Kildall had been in the bar between two to 20 minutes. Then witnesses "turned around, and he was on the floor," the sergeant said. > But Sollecito said stories are changing. "That version isn't going to hold up," he said. https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19940716&slug=1920582 https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19940716&slug... The source of that story seems to be the Monterey Police Department, but nothing came of the investigation.
peter_d_sherman 3y ago
>"IBM wished to purchase CP/M outright, whereas DRI sought a per-copy royalty payment in order to protect its existing base of business. The meeting ended in an impasse over financial terms, but Gary believed they had essentially agreed to do business. Kildall tried to renew the negotiations a couple of weeks later. IBM did not respond because, in the meantime, Bill Gates purchased an OS from Seattle Computer Products that was written to emulate the look and feel of CP/M. He then sold a one-time, non-exclusive license to IBM, which used the designation PC DOS. With great foresight, he retained the right to license the product to others as MS-DOS." [...] >"IBM announced the PC on August 12, 1981, but with the PC-DOS list price set at $40 versus $240 for CP/M, most customers simply chose the former as the lower-cost option." And the rest... is computer history... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft)
- TacticalCoder 3y ago
  > IBM did not respond because, in the meantime, Bill Gates purchased an OS from Seattle Computer Products that was written to emulate the look and feel of CP/M. He then sold a one-time, non-exclusive license to IBM... Yeah. It's incredible how IBM handed the golden keys to the castle on a plate cut in a solid 100000000 carat diamond to Microsoft. This has to be the absolute worst business deal ever made in history: 3 trillion market cap for Microsoft. And IBM created that.
  - smallstepforman 3y ago
    That is debatable. The PC clone business made the IBM PC the industry “standard”, since it opened up the supplier list to many companies. IBM alone (eg. PS2 and OS/2) as a sole manufacturer did not manage to conquer the world. And MS had the insight to offer DOS to everyone. MS really won because they were cheaper than alternatives (eg Berkeley GeOS, CP/M, Unix) until critical mass was established. Even if FreeBSD was available in mid 80’s, it would have become the “standard” today. Cheap and good enough always wins the day. Proprietary and expensive makes you 2nd best.
    - 3y ago

126 points by jnord 3y ago

I hope someone will write an article about Gary Kildall's achievements in theory of compilation. For us, compiler writers, he is a legendary figure.

wglb 3y ago
I have a copy of his paper at U of W titled "A Code Synthesis filter for basic block optimization" 72-3-01. The code behind the paper was written in XPL.
- wglb 3y ago
  Further, his work in that area is referenced in other compiler-related books such as Flow Analysis of Computer Programs by Matthew S. Hect.
cmrdporcupine 3y ago
Interesting, I've followed topics about Kildall for years but never knew about this. Cool. EDIT: referenced paper is here: https://haoxintu.github.io/files/1-A%20Unified%20Approach%20to%20Global%20Program%20Optimization.pdf https://haoxintu.github.io/files/1-A%20Unified%20Approach%20...

pjmlp 3y ago

$100 (base OS + bare bones devtools) + $90 (for having the confort of Macros) + $75 (debuging beyond text output) + $75 (for a proper code formatter) = $340 in 1978. Which are around $1,628.73 in today's money, plus hardware costs, so no wonder that many of us would just stick with the base install and make do with what was available. Example, I never had an Assembler for Timex 2068, rather painfully translated opcodes into DATA segments, or used a hexdump editor that appeared in some computer magazine as one of those type-in examples.

zwieback 3y ago
Yes, stuff was ridiculously expensive back then. I was lucky that my dad bought an Apple ][ for home use but none of my friends could afford anything like that. All our software was pirated or we wrote it ourselves. I have fond memories of my youth in the 8 bit era but this is the golden age of home computing, right now, and it keeps getting better.
- musicale 2y ago
  > my dad bought an Apple ][ for home use but none of my friends could afford anything like that Apple's pricing hasn't changed that much. ;-) > Introductory price: US$1,298 (equivalent to $6,530 in 2023) source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II
ghaff 3y ago
Basically, dabbling in PCs used to be really expensive relative to today. ((The details matter of course) but basically a PC and software in the early eighties was many thousands of dollars in today's money.
- justin66 3y ago
  An awful lot of other expenses were a lot cheaper, so computer stuff wasn't quite so extravagant for a working person to splurge on as it might seem. The defining characteristic of early users was curiosity, not wealth.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Depends where you lived. The "other expenses" were mostly housing in expensive areas of the country.
    - justin66 3y ago
      If areas with more expensive housing were less likely to have a PC, that’s not a trend that I ever noticed.

uticus 3y ago

> "Together with his invention of the BIOS (Basic Input Output System), Kildall's operating system allowed a microprocessor-based computer to communicate with a disk drive storage unit and provided an important foundation for the personal computer revolution." (IEEE milestone plaque cited in article) The whole idea of an OS as an important thing is debatable. For example: > The operating system is another concept that is curious. Operating systems are dauntingly complex and totally unnecessary. It’s a brilliant thing that Bill Gates has done in selling the world on the notion of operating systems. It’s probably the greatest con game the world has ever seen. > An operating system does absolutely nothing for you. As long as you had something—a subroutine called disk driver, a subroutine called some kind of communication support, in the modern world, it doesn’t do anything else. (Chuck Moore, interview in "Masterminds of Programming", 2009)

xnorswap 3y ago
That sounds like nonsense. The idea that a stable API provides no value is contrary to all the evidence. Look at graphics APIs like DirectX and look at what happened when jQuery was released for more evidence that having a stable API that covers disparate collections of hardware (or browser) APIs, provides vast amount of value. The idea that an operating system providing a stable API over different computers is something that doesn't provide value is hogwash.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  It's more than just a stable API across different computers, though that's a huge deal. It's also code that I don't have to write. I don't have to write the disk drivers. I don't have to write the keyboard driver. I don't have to write the mouse driver. I don't have to write the screen driver. I can build what I'm trying to build on top of that, without worrying about all of that detail.
  - uticus 3y ago
    Not disagreeing (completely) with you, but worth pointing out the very next question in the interview I quoted above looks like this: > What about device support? > Chuck: You have a subroutine for each device. That’s a library, not an operating system. Call the ones you need or load the ones you need. ...for sure it's a departure from the common way of doing things, at least. And it's almost impossible to imagine, today's generation would have to look at retro-computing to see something akin to the idea [0] [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64#BASIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64#BASIC [1] https://dfarq.homeip.net/commodore-64-operating-system/ https://dfarq.homeip.net/commodore-64-operating-system/

thecodeboy 3y ago

For those who don't know, Gary Kildall was also a presenter in the PBS TV show "Computer Chronicles". [1] I've been enjoying watching episodes of this show I found on YouTube. [2] [1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Chronicles https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Chronicles [2] - https://m.youtube.com/@ComputerChroniclesYT https://m.youtube.com/@ComputerChroniclesYT

guyzero 3y ago

Headquartered in Pacific Grove? Wild. The alternate history of Silicon Valley being the Salinas Valley instead of Santa Clara valley.

krallja 3y ago
Silicon Valley is so named because of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, Fairchild Semiconductor, and Intel. Shockley moved from NJ to Palo Alto in 1956 to care for his ailing mother.

nsxwolf 3y ago

The article mentions Gary died in an accident, which I recall reading elsewhere was that he fell and hit his head in a brawl at a biker bar.

jetrink 3y ago
> Seattle Times: Computer Pioneer's Death Probed -- Kildall Called Possible Victim Of Homicide > Kildall was injured at the Franklin Street Bar & Grill on July 8 but refused medical treatment. He was taken to a hospital the following day and released. But he was readmitted Sunday and died the following day. > Kildall could have died either from a blow to the head or from hitting his head as he fell, said Sollecito. > The first description of the incident at the bar, he said, was that Kildall had been in the bar between two to 20 minutes. Then witnesses "turned around, and he was on the floor," the sergeant said. > But Sollecito said stories are changing. "That version isn't going to hold up," he said. https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19940716&slug=1920582 https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19940716&slug... The source of that story seems to be the Monterey Police Department, but nothing came of the investigation.

peter_d_sherman 3y ago

>"IBM wished to purchase CP/M outright, whereas DRI sought a per-copy royalty payment in order to protect its existing base of business. The meeting ended in an impasse over financial terms, but Gary believed they had essentially agreed to do business. Kildall tried to renew the negotiations a couple of weeks later. IBM did not respond because, in the meantime, Bill Gates purchased an OS from Seattle Computer Products that was written to emulate the look and feel of CP/M. He then sold a one-time, non-exclusive license to IBM, which used the designation PC DOS. With great foresight, he retained the right to license the product to others as MS-DOS." [...] >"IBM announced the PC on August 12, 1981, but with the PC-DOS list price set at $40 versus $240 for CP/M, most customers simply chose the former as the lower-cost option." And the rest... is computer history... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft)

TacticalCoder 3y ago
> IBM did not respond because, in the meantime, Bill Gates purchased an OS from Seattle Computer Products that was written to emulate the look and feel of CP/M. He then sold a one-time, non-exclusive license to IBM... Yeah. It's incredible how IBM handed the golden keys to the castle on a plate cut in a solid 100000000 carat diamond to Microsoft. This has to be the absolute worst business deal ever made in history: 3 trillion market cap for Microsoft. And IBM created that.
- smallstepforman 3y ago
  That is debatable. The PC clone business made the IBM PC the industry “standard”, since it opened up the supplier list to many companies. IBM alone (eg. PS2 and OS/2) as a sole manufacturer did not manage to conquer the world. And MS had the insight to offer DOS to everyone. MS really won because they were cheaper than alternatives (eg Berkeley GeOS, CP/M, Unix) until critical mass was established. Even if FreeBSD was available in mid 80’s, it would have become the “standard” today. Cheap and good enough always wins the day. Proprietary and expensive makes you 2nd best.
  - 3y ago