Books on Operating Systems History? 19
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."
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (Score:3)
Where Wizards Stay Up Late (Score:1)
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....
A Quarter Century of Unix (Score:3)
here are some links (Score:3)
Accidental Empires (Score:1)
Design and implementation - MINIX (Score:1)
Re:Accidental Empires (Score:2)
Check out his own website:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/
to get a taste.
The book doesn't really document OS history as much as that of the computer industry, but IMHO it's essential reading for anyone who sees themselves as a pundit on such matters.
"Triumph of the Nerds", is worth a look in the same vein. From memory, Cringley did an earlier program as well, to do with computers rather than the Internet, which is primarily what "Nerds" is about.
Neal Stephenson's essay "In the beginning was the Command Line" is not really historical, but is worth reading to appreciate some of the differences between modern OS's, if you haven't seen it before:
http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html
Unix Family Tree (Score:3)
Re:Unix Family Tree (Score:1)
Basically quite a sucky family tree
Re:Unix Family Tree (Score:1)
Basically quite a sucky family tree
A much better family tree (Score:2)
Re:here are some links (Score:1)
Does anyone know of a really geat book that would go through this history?
And again:
but it's really a good read I'm after
It apears he asking for books, not just websites. So ripping on him for not using a search engine is a moot point.
Nate Custer
Deitel and Tannenbaum (Score:2)
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 It may be a bit out of date now, and of course it's more about the design than the history, but you can piece together the history from the content.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_
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Four Books: (Score:1)
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.
Re:Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (Score:2)
My own suggestion, although not wholly fitting the OP's desires either, is a technical book which does discuss some history of OSs from a technical perspective: Prof Andrew Tanenbaum's Modern Operating Systems (I'm too lazy to go look up an URL), a time-honoured college-level textbook which focuses mostly on Unix and traditional OS designs, although more than half of it is about distributed systems.
Re:Accidental Empires (Score:1)
some places to check (Score:1)
Life with Unix: A guide for everyone (Score:1)
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 [mailto]
Dey Ray Atari.... (Score:1)
OH! Unix!
Nevermind.