History of Operating Systems - Essay Example

A Report on Operating Systems A brief review of the history of computer systems Today's computing system can be traced back to the 'Harvard Mk I' and Colossus (both of 1943). Colossus was an electronic computer built in Britain at the end 1943 and developed to crack the German coding system - Lorenz cipher. First generation computers were normally based around wired circuits containing vacuum valves and used punched cards as the main (non-volatile) storage medium. Another general purpose computer of this era was 'ENIAC' (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) which was completed in 1946. It was representative of first generation computers, it weighed 30 tonnes contained 18,000 electronic valves and consumed around 25KW of electrical power. The 'ENIAC' had the capacity to do 100,000 calculations per second (White, 2005). As the needs increased, many scientific computing needs were met by increasingly sophisticated, special-purpose analog computers during the 20th century, which used a direct physical or electrical model of the problem as a basis for computation. However, these features became more and more uncommon after the introduction digital computer. A succession of steadily more potent and versatile computers were constructed in the 1930s and 1940s, with increasing use of digital electronics (invented by Claude Shannon in 1937) and more versatile programmability (Computer, 2006). Later, Intel released the world's first commercial microprocessor, the 4004 on November 15th, 1971. This is a Fourth generation computer using a microprocessor to locate much of the computer's processing abilities on a single (small) chip. The microprocessor allowed the development of microcomputers, personal computers that were small and cheap enough to be affordable by ordinary people. The first such personal computer was the MITS Altair 8800, released at the end of 1974, but it was followed by computers such as the Apple I & II, Commodore PET and eventually the original IBM PC in 1981. Although processing power and storage capacities have increased beyond all recognition since the 1970s the underlying technology of LSI (large scale integration) or VLSI (very large scale integration) microchips has remained basically the same, so it is widely regarded that most of today's computers still belong to the fourth generation (White, 2005). The demands of today's computer users as well as the modern network have moved beyond that of simple client server connectivity. There is now the availability of a wide variety of end-to-end communication products aimed at specific business functions. These include access points, broadband, cable, content networking, contact centre solutions, data centre networking, network management, optical, routing, security, VPN, storage networking, switching, unified communications, video, voice and wireless (Networking, 2004). Today's computers also have huge speed and capacity for information processing compared to computers of the past, and they have become exponentially more powerful over the years (a phenomenon known as Moore's Law). The original computers were as huge as the size of a big room. Today's smaller computers for individual use, called personal computers, and their portable equivalent, the notebook computer, are ubiquitous information-processing and communication tools and are perhaps what most non-experts think of as "a computer". However, the most common form of computer in use today is the embedded computer, small computers used to control another device. Embedded computers control machines from fighter planes to digital cameras (Computer, 2006). Historical developments in operating systems Soon after the invention of the computer, it was discovered that certain tasks were required in many different programs; an early example was computing some of the standard mathematical functions. For the purposes of efficiency, standard versions of these were collected in libraries and made available to all who required them. A particularly common job set related to handling the gritty details of "talking" to the various I/O devices, so libraries for these were quickly developed (Computer, 2006). Early computers lacked operating systems. Users will have to manually load and run programs. When programs were developed to load and run other programs, it was natural to draw their name from the human job they replaced. Most current usage of the term "operating system" today, by both popular and professional sources, refers to all the software that is required in order for the user to manage the system and to run third-party application software for that system (Operating system, 2006). By the 1960s, with computers in wide industrial use for many purposes, it became common for them to be used for many different jobs within an organisation. Soon, operating systems were use to automate the scheduling and execution of these many jobs. The classic example of this type of early operating system was OS/360 by IBM (Computer, 2006). The next main phase in the development in operating systems was timesharing - the idea that multiple users could use the machine at the same time by saving all of their programs in memory, running each user's program for a short time so as to provide the illusion that each user had their own computer (Computer, 2006). A multi-user operating system allows many different users to take advantage of the computer's resources all at the same time. It is the task of the operating system to make sure that the requirements of the various users are balanced, and that each of the programs they are using has enough and different resources so that a problem with one user doesn't affect the entire community of users (Multi-user, 2004). The most recent major addition to the operating system are the tools that provide programs with a standardised graphical user interface. While there are few technical reasons why a GUI has to be tied to the rest of an operating system, it allows the operating system vendor to encourage all the software for their operating system to have a similar looking and acting interface (Computer, 2006). Windows operating system Most of today's computers are using the Windows OS as their operating system. Windows OS is a Microsoft-designed computer operating system, a program that controls the basic functions of personal computers. Windows started life as Microsoft's take on a graphical user interface (GUI) (Computer operating system, n.d.). Most problems encountered with the earlier versions windows is trashing or hanging. However, windows come with outstanding online help purposely built to troubleshoot gaffe with computer hardware, operating system, and applications. It's called the Windows Resource Kit Plus Tools Ampler (Computer operating system, n.d.). Later Microsoft introduced Microsoft's Windows NT (for new technology), also referred to as NT, which is a sophisticated graphical user interface operating system designed for client-server networks. Windows NT has the capability of working with multiple CPUs using symmetric multiprocessing, preemptive multitasking and multithreading. However, Windows NT requires more disk space, memory, and the faster processors just for the tools for developing Internet web pages and operating system (Computer operating system, n.d.). Linux operating system Linux (or GNU/Linux) is a computer operating system and its kernel. It is one of the most main examples of free software and of open-source development: Unlike proprietary operating systems such as Windows and Mac OS, all of its underlying source code is available to the public and anyone can freely use, modify, improve, and redistribute it. Initially, Linux was developed and used by individual enthusiasts. Since then, Linux has gained the support of major corporations such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and Novell for use in servers and is gaining popularity in the desktop market. Proponents and analysts believe that Linux success is due to its vendor independence, low cost, security, and reliability (Linux, 2006) (Khatib, 1997). Future of computer systems and operating systems The future trend for computing is most likely is to getting computers off of the desktop and onto the road. Computers will be everywhere, and at the same time less visible. This trend has already begun. Most of today's manufactured appliances have a computer chip inside. Clocks, watches, radios, phones, refrigerators, heaters, televisions, and even some pens all have more computing power in them then the first Apollo mission to the moon. Most of these devices have been extraordinarily simplified through the use of technology (Future computing, n.d.). Another trend in computing will be to be able to access anything from anywhere. Today, this is made possible with the use of an array of interactive cell phones, and personal organisers. The future leader in the technology would have to be Palm Computing. Palm develops organisers that are about the size of a wallet, and can do most of the things your computer can do. One can search the web, write email, play games, and do your taxes or almost anything else from almost anywhere (Future computing, n.d.). A number of factors are contributing in the development and use of operating systems. The emergence of the Internet, with the Java operating environment and the reemergence of UNIX-like systems such as Linux is influencing users to rethink their operating system strategies. Whilst some hardware platforms dominate today, it is most likely that the leadership will change in the next five years (Factors, 1999). Today, all commercial operating systems are isolated, which means that each hardware platform has its own complete operating system. The future direction of operating systems research and design is the distributed operating system wherein multiple hardware platforms will be able to share the same operating system but still looks as one computer (Factors, 1999). Moreover, the availability of applications running on an operating system will still greatly influence its supremacy. As more people use the applications that are based upon an operating system, the more it is used. As the number of users of the operating system increase, the more it becomes the one of choice for software developers. Consequently, new software is written for the operating system and not its competition (Factors, 1999). Reference List Computer. (2006). Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Available from: [26 Jan. 2006]. Computer Operating System. (n.d.). Allfreeessays.com. Available from: [26 Jan. 2006]. Future Computing. (n.d.). Available from: [26 Jan. 2006]. Factors Governing Future Operating Systems. (1999). Integrated Business Information Systems Ltd. Available from: [26 Jan. 2006]. History of operating systems. (2004). OSdata.com. Available from: [26 Jan. 2006]. Khatib, Jamil. (1997). Linux the operating system of the Future. Computer Based Learning Unit, University of Leeds. Available from: [26 Jan. 2006}. Linux. (2006). Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Available from: [26 Jan. 2006]. Multi-User Operating System. (2004). Available from: [26 Jan. 2006]. Networking. (2004). Digital Media & Communications. Available from: [26 Jan. 2006]. Operating system. (2006). Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Available from: [26 Jan. 2006]. White, Stephen. (2005). A Brief History of Computing. Stephen White. Available from: [26 Jan. 2006]. Zade, Mohankumar C (1999). Evolution of User Interfaces. Available from: [26 Jan. 2006]. Read More