SMALL TALK
... On Operating Systems
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Announced today was a new operating system for the PC. It is called DOS/Perot.
When you boot it, it displays a message on the screen saying it's thinking of running.
It then scans the hard drive, looking for competing OS's. If any competing OS's are
found, it quits immediately.
Anyone participating in the use of MS-DOS, Heroin or Cocaine is simply
not getting the most out of life possible.
I just found out that the brain is like a computer. If that's true, then there
are really aren't stupid people. Just people running DOS.
Microsoft Windows: Proof that P.T. Barnum was correct.
MSDOS is a Neanderthal operating system.
MSDOS is CP/M on steroids -- bigger, bulkier, and not much better.
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980's.
MSDOS isn't dead, it just smells like it.
MSDOS was created to keep idiots away from Unix.
Windows 95 is like a B-1 bomber with a belly full of fuel and bombs
flying on three engines.
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Chief weapons of Unix: Fear, surprise and ruthless efficiency.
From an operating system research point of view, Unix is, if not dead,
certainly old stuff, and it's clear that people should be looking beyond it.
Hey, I know this! This is Unix!
If I didn't have a Unix machine, I'd feel naked.
If you take Fred Cohen's definition of a virus, then Unix itself is one
of the most successful viruses ever written, since it tends to result in
the creation of modified versions of itself on other computer systems.
In 1980, a single person could undestand the Unix kernel. In 1990, a single
person couldn't even lift it!
It is easier to port UNIX to a new machine, than an application to a new
operating system.
The most brilliant decision in all Unix was the choice of a single character
for the newline sequence.
This is the typical life of any UNIX administrator. Most user/system problems
tend to read just like detective novels. Sometimes we win, sometimes we reboot.
There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and Unix. We
don't believe this to be a coincidence.
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it ... badly.
Unix: a moment of convenience, a lifetime of regret.
Unix is defined by whatever is running on Dennis Ritchie's machine.
Unix: so programmer friendly, you can't believe it's really there.
Unix should be used as an adjective.
Unix was never designed to keep people from doing stupid things, because
that policy would also keep them from doing clever things.
Unix will continue for a long time to be the genetic code of the Internet.
X is the Fortran of windowing systems.
When you type to Unix, a gnome deep in the system is gathering your characters
and saving them in a secret place.
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Do you pine for the nice days of Minix 1.1, when men were men and wrote their
own device drivers? Are you without a nice project and just dying to cut your teeth
on an OS you can try to modify for your needs? Are you finding frustruations when
everything works on Minix? No more all-nighters to get a nifty program working?
Then this post might be just for you.
Friends don't let friends run Xenix.
I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and
possibly program, of all time.
I don't like four-letter-word operating systems
Linux is, and more than likely always will be, a hacker's operating system.
MVS - Man Versus System
One could implement POSIX using a very fast and very smart cockroach. As long
as the source program produces the right output the cockroach is POSIX conforming.
Sometimes I look fondly back on the uncomplicated days of DOS 3.1. Of course,
those were also the days of DEC's PO/S. Agggghhhh!
The defining factor of being an operating system is if you can run games on it.
VMS is a text-only adventure game. If you win you can use Unix.
VMS isn't an operating system, it's aplaypen for DEC systems programmers.
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