History behind Windows and the man who should have been Bill Gates

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B00nie

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I ran into this interesting video of the history of the desktop operating system:



'Q-DOS, Quick and Dirty Operating System which was 'dirty' being an illegal copy of CP/M became MS-DOS'. Yeah.
 
Kindall yes the guy that really made personal computers shit. lol

Guy gets way to much credit. I'm not a Gates fan but Bill really did far more then required of him. IBM came to him first he could have spun some BS right out of the gate... instead he pointed them in the direction of CP/M and Kindall. Giving him a heads up phone call. Not breaking his IBM non disclosure and saying it was IBM coming was the right thing to do... if those tightly wound IBM boys had got a "I knew you where coming" from Kindall likely have been the last time IBM threw any business Gates way. Can't blame him for stepping up after IBM actually came back to him and said CP/NOway.... I think I actually respect young and old Bill a lot, even if middle age Bill turned out to be a dick.

“Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

IMO Kindall is overrated. He wrote CP/M on a TOPS-10 OS (first developed in 1964) running machine... and cribbed CP/M directly from TOPS sadly he left out a lot of stuff worth copying... but I guess he had to get a mainframe OS to run on a 1973 floppy. He decided to assign the machines he was working with letter names for drives, which although perhaps logical at the time is far from the best way to deal with things now... tops had a more elegant solution but I guess he didn't have the resources to really do anything more then assign drives A: B: C: ect. Kindall basically cribbed enough from TOPS10 to hack together a working low rent OS, cutting out all the things that made TOPS-10 actually pretty forward thinking. Tops introduced the idea of protection codes... Unix later copied it and of course it now Linux. They even used the 3 digit format [7 5 5].

This video also gives Kindall credit for * and ? wildcards... which again he simply lifted from TOPS-10, which had wildcards 10 years before the first version of CP/M.

Kindall basically just built a dirty single user version of TOPS-10.
.ini files .sys files .exe files... all part of TOP-10 by 1970

TOPS commands also used / switches such as;
FORMAT /help (which just like CP/M and DOS would list all the other possible switches for you)

The system would even load "switch.ini" which would allow users to create their own commands like this;
.declare BOOnie=sys:BOOman.exe (put that exe in the system directory and now typing BOOnie runs that progam + any strings you add to the end)

Kindall took commands he needed and renamed them no real reason...
TOPS-10 - CREDIR (create directory) became CP/M INITDIR ; (later MS just lifted the Unix MKDIR name)
TOPS-10 - COPY .... in CP/M Kindall just used TOPS-10s PIP (Peripheral Interchange Program) to achieve a copy function.... ok in a time of tape cassette storage devices that is logical. (in the early 60s it was the ATLATL command "anything, lord to anything, lord" as it was used to copy files from tape drives ect and things tended to F up)

Anyway... I won't go on and on.

Bottom line Kindall mostly cribbed CP/M as well. There really isn't much of anything original in CP/M... he simply took an OS designed for servers of the 60s, hacked it down... dropped a ton of stuff like (multi user file permission flags). Hacking together a low ball version that would run directly on terminal hardware.

What gates did was business... and money isn't everything.
If the world was a fair place, the glory and fame would belong to;
Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie without whom we would have nothing today, could you imagine a world of computer programs written in visual basic or cobol? lol
 
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What Gates did was brilliant business moves which created the situation we're in now. Left without options and true competition. If the government wouldn't be paid out they'd have broken up Microsoft ages ago. It's never a healthy market when there's only one dominant provider of goods and services.
 
What Gates did was brilliant business moves which created the situation we're in now. Left without options and true competition. If the government wouldn't be paid out they'd have broken up Microsoft ages ago. It's never a healthy market when there's only one dominant provider of goods and services.

I agree.... its that middle part of his carer where Gates and the people around him went full on Dick. The early CP/M move was smart. CP/M itself was ripped off and Gates and anyone else at the time that had used a Mainframe knew what CP/M was. None of the bigs really protected their software (cause it was the hardware that sold and made money after all)... so Kindall was just as much a thief as Gates... and the guy Gates picked dirty dos up from. They where all just cribbing the big server operating systems designed by the real geniuses no one hears about. Those guys got picked up and had jobs at places like AT&T and DEC. Folks like Ken Thompson who worked almost his entire life at Bell. (guy is still working in his 70s for Google which is crazy... and his latest creation GO may well power software for the next 50 years)

Its annoying that Gates is the guy that gets all the credit. All he did was steal from earlier thiefs... and then steal some more. Hell he even tricked IBM into helping him create NT the base of everything up to and including win 10... and too this day MS still just uses NTFS which is nothing but the HPFS (high performance file system) IBM developed for OS/2. (as I pointed out in the recent fragmentation thread... both file systems use the same # identifier (07) software needs to perform added checks to tell which is which) Gates made some shrewd business dealings... but he is no Computer messiah, his actions have held computing back by decades.
 
and too this day MS still just uses NTFS which is nothing but the HPFS (high performance file system) IBM developed for OS/2. (as I pointed out in the recent fragmentation thread... both file systems use the same # identifier (07) software needs to perform added checks to tell which is which)


You keep claiming that, but I went and looked it up - HPFS wasn't developed by IBM for OS/2, it wasdeveloped by an engineer at Microsoft (Gordon Letwin) for OS/2. NTFS took those ideas and added additional features such as ACLs, transparent encryption, and transparent compression. It wasn't stolen; it was made by the people you're accusing of being thieves.
 
You keep claiming that, but I went and looked it up - HPFS wasn't developed by IBM for OS/2, it wasdeveloped by an engineer at Microsoft (Gordon Letwin) for OS/2. NTFS took those ideas and added additional features such as ACLs, transparent encryption, and transparent compression. It wasn't stolen; it was made by the people you're accusing of being thieves.

HPFS ("High Performance File System") is a file system created specifically for the OS/2 operating system to improve upon the limitations of the FAT file system. It was written by Gordon Letwin and others at Microsoft and added to OS/2 version 1.2, at that time still a joint undertaking of Microsoft and IBM, and released in 1988.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Performance_File_System
 
Gary Kildall - 'cause that's his name, not Kindall - was not talented enough to be "the man who should have been Bill Gates." He had no business sense, no commercial acumen to speak of, wasn't interested in the big picture, cared more about his dope than most anything else, and while talented behind the keys as far as coding was concerned, simply could not have ever been anyone even remotely similar to Bill Gates in any respects related to anything related to computer technology except perhaps the coding skills they both possessed at the time.

And you people using Wikipedia as reference material, I mean really. Some of us actually lived through those times and know the real info that a Wikipedia article will never ever be able to reveal. :D
 
Well, taking money from IBM to develop a windowing environment OS2 Warp, and at the same time developing Windows to be better than OS2 is just plain lousy.

I'm glad his guilty conscience (there are other things in his past as well) is pushing him to fund some good causes. That's a good thing.

Regarding competition and monopolies, a political system that benefits from mega donors doesn't seem interested in reining in mergers and the like.

Even Adam Smith (no great humanist) admitted the need for regulation and protecting the little guy from the big guy. People quote him constantly, but seem purposely unaware of some of his cautionary comments.
 
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Good coder, but poor manager. Unfortunately, if you wanted to have sustained successes in the microcomputer software market, you had to be both.

Every published history of the era has painted him this way. I would ignore web crap painting him as some untapped messiah. His OS products were better than Microsoft once he started trying, but that happened because MS had their people spread so thin, trying to get into dozens of markets.

Microsoft managed to get themselves SUCCESSFULLY into the following markets in just a decade: Word Processing, Database, Publishing, Spreadsheet, Presentation, Server OS, Simulation, Encyclopedia, And a bunch of new compilers to round-out their BASIC monopoly. All going on while they hammered away at DOS and Windows, and Gary Kidall was playing catch-up.
 
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And you people using Wikipedia as reference material, I mean really. Some of us actually lived through those times and know the real info that a Wikipedia article will never ever be able to reveal. :D

If the information isn't accurate then correct it. Technically both IBM and Microsoft own HPFS as they shared ownership of what they co-developed while they were working jointly on OS/2. Microsoft had the lead on some parts, IBM other parts.
 
You keep claiming that, but I went and looked it up - HPFS wasn't developed by IBM for OS/2, it wasdeveloped by an engineer at Microsoft (Gordon Letwin) for OS/2. NTFS took those ideas and added additional features such as ACLs, transparent encryption, and transparent compression. It wasn't stolen; it was made by the people you're accusing of being thieves.

Not completely true.

At the time MS and IBM where using each other. IBM had a crazy idea that they where going to build a MS-DOS replacement and have MS help. They partnered with MS to replace themselves. MS thought this sounds crazy, and in Balmers words at the time... "They decided to ride the bear instead of be under it." So MS basically let IBM bankroll most of the project and lend them as much decent talent as possible.

In this situation, yes Gordon Letwin lead a TEAM of IBM and MS engineers that created the design goals (longer char limits, b tree support ect, changing the location of the root to the middle of the disc ect.) that they would need to create to a FAT replacement system. So HPFS ended up being a bastard file system co developed by MS with IBM employees... and as such MS and IBM both had to pay royalties to each other to use it. IBM switched to JFS for OS/2 Warp to avoid paying MS... and MS basically took HPFS added a bunch of new stuff and called it something else (although as I correctly stated they didn't even bother to change the identification number) so they didn't have to pay IBM.

MS picked Dave Cutler up from DEC and the majority of his DEC team left with him for MS. That triggered a bunch of DEC vs MS lawsuits... but DEC was dying and lacked any real teeth (money) at that point. That is the team that did the heavy lifting on NT. They put together NTFS, and yes the added some new features both because they where needed and also because hey IBM could afford to go to court.

If we accept WIKI is always 100% accurate (its not, and isn't always the entire story)....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS

" The HPFS file system for OS/2 contained several important new features. When Microsoft created their new operating system, they borrowed many of these concepts for NTFS.[8] NTFS developers include: Tom Miller, Gary Kimura, Brian Andrew and David Goebel.[9]
Probably as a result of this common ancestry, HPFS and NTFS use the same disk partition identification type code (07). Using the same Partition ID Record Number is highly unusual, since there were dozens of unused code numbers available, and other major file systems have their own codes "

Tom Miller and Gary Kimura both came with Cutler from DEC. Gary Kimura was even the guy that ported HPFS to NT. After doing that he and Miller did most of the heavy lifting on NTFS. They ported HPFS first.... from there it seems clear they extended and expanded what HPFS was and called it NTFS. I'm not saying they didn't improve it... but they used HPFS as a base no doubt.

As far as not changing the identifier... I can't tell you if they where just being lazy. Or as I suspect (and I have no proof obviously) someone at MS decided it would be funny and a nice F U to IBM... who wasn't willing to cross licence the FS so both IBM and MS could use it royalty free a few years prior when they broke up the OS/2 Project.
 
Not completely true.

At the time MS and IBM where using each other. IBM had a crazy idea that they where going to build a MS-DOS replacement and have MS help. They partnered with MS to replace themselves. MS thought this sounds crazy, and in Balmers words at the time... "They decided to ride the bear instead of be under it." So MS basically let IBM bankroll most of the project and lend them as much decent talent as possible.

In this situation, yes Gordon Letwin lead a TEAM of IBM and MS engineers that created the design goals (longer char limits, b tree support ect, changing the location of the root to the middle of the disc ect.) that they would need to create to a FAT replacement system. So HPFS ended up being a bastard file system co developed by MS with IBM employees... and as such MS and IBM both had to pay royalties to each other to use it. IBM switched to JFS for OS/2 Warp to avoid paying MS... and MS basically took HPFS added a bunch of new stuff and called it something else (although as I correctly stated they didn't even bother to change the identification number) so they didn't have to pay IBM.

MS picked Dave Cutler up from DEC and the majority of his DEC team left with him for MS. That triggered a bunch of DEC vs MS lawsuits... but DEC was dying and lacked any real teeth (money) at that point. That is the team that did the heavy lifting on NT. They put together NTFS, and yes the added some new features both because they where needed and also because hey IBM could afford to go to court.

If we accept WIKI is always 100% accurate (its not, and isn't always the entire story)....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS

" The HPFS file system for OS/2 contained several important new features. When Microsoft created their new operating system, they borrowed many of these concepts for NTFS.[8] NTFS developers include: Tom Miller, Gary Kimura, Brian Andrew and David Goebel.[9]
Probably as a result of this common ancestry, HPFS and NTFS use the same disk partition identification type code (07). Using the same Partition ID Record Number is highly unusual, since there were dozens of unused code numbers available, and other major file systems have their own codes "

Tom Miller and Gary Kimura both came with Cutler from DEC. Gary Kimura was even the guy that ported HPFS to NT. After doing that he and Miller did most of the heavy lifting on NTFS. They ported HPFS first.... from there it seems clear they extended and expanded what HPFS was and called it NTFS. I'm not saying they didn't improve it... but they used HPFS as a base no doubt.

As far as not changing the identifier... I can't tell you if they where just being lazy. Or as I suspect (and I have no proof obviously) someone at MS decided it would be funny and a nice F U to IBM... who wasn't willing to cross licence the FS so both IBM and MS could use it royalty free a few years prior when they broke up the OS/2 Project.

Here's a fairly nuanced article on IBM-Microsoft. With regard to OS2 both sides played hardball, but Gates bailed on the relationship first.

https://arstechnica.com/information...rating-system-the-triumph-and-tragedy-of-os2/

Boy! American business as war, dominance, and outsmarting the other party, America has adopted a Ferengi Philosphy. I long for the cooperative vison of Star Fleet! Really.
 
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Not completely true.

At the time MS and IBM where using each other. IBM had a crazy idea that they where going to build a MS-DOS replacement and have MS help. They partnered with MS to replace themselves. MS thought this sounds crazy, and in Balmers words at the time... "They decided to ride the bear instead of be under it." So MS basically let IBM bankroll most of the project and lend them as much decent talent as possible.

In this situation, yes Gordon Letwin lead a TEAM of IBM and MS engineers that created the design goals (longer char limits, b tree support ect, changing the location of the root to the middle of the disc ect.) that they would need to create to a FAT replacement system. So HPFS ended up being a bastard file system co developed by MS with IBM employees... and as such MS and IBM both had to pay royalties to each other to use it. IBM switched to JFS for OS/2 Warp to avoid paying MS... and MS basically took HPFS added a bunch of new stuff and called it something else (although as I correctly stated they didn't even bother to change the identification number) so they didn't have to pay IBM.

MS picked Dave Cutler up from DEC and the majority of his DEC team left with him for MS. That triggered a bunch of DEC vs MS lawsuits... but DEC was dying and lacked any real teeth (money) at that point. That is the team that did the heavy lifting on NT. They put together NTFS, and yes the added some new features both because they where needed and also because hey IBM could afford to go to court.

If we accept WIKI is always 100% accurate (its not, and isn't always the entire story)....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS

" The HPFS file system for OS/2 contained several important new features. When Microsoft created their new operating system, they borrowed many of these concepts for NTFS.[8] NTFS developers include: Tom Miller, Gary Kimura, Brian Andrew and David Goebel.[9]
Probably as a result of this common ancestry, HPFS and NTFS use the same disk partition identification type code (07). Using the same Partition ID Record Number is highly unusual, since there were dozens of unused code numbers available, and other major file systems have their own codes "

Tom Miller and Gary Kimura both came with Cutler from DEC. Gary Kimura was even the guy that ported HPFS to NT. After doing that he and Miller did most of the heavy lifting on NTFS. They ported HPFS first.... from there it seems clear they extended and expanded what HPFS was and called it NTFS. I'm not saying they didn't improve it... but they used HPFS as a base no doubt.

As far as not changing the identifier... I can't tell you if they where just being lazy. Or as I suspect (and I have no proof obviously) someone at MS decided it would be funny and a nice F U to IBM... who wasn't willing to cross licence the FS so both IBM and MS could use it royalty free a few years prior when they broke up the OS/2 Project.

Partition ID reuse wasn't that uncommon. https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/partitions/partition_types-1.html I suspect their boot loader code was already close to finalized and they didn't want to bother changing it for what amounted to cosmetics.
 
If the information isn't accurate then correct it. Technically both IBM and Microsoft own HPFS as they shared ownership of what they co-developed while they were working jointly on OS/2. Microsoft had the lead on some parts, IBM other parts.

I liked Windows 95 but at least on the PC side, I loved OS/2 Warp. :) I remember installing it on a 10GB hard drive back then and it would boot in 30 seconds. It was just that IBM had not clue what to do with what they had and they really did not care anyways. :(
 
I liked Windows 95 but at least on the PC side, I loved OS/2 Warp. :) I remember installing it on a 10GB hard drive back then and it would boot in 30 seconds. It was just that IBM had not clue what to do with what they had and they really did not care anyways. :(

Biggest mistake was letting Warp run windows software in a VM window. Developers had no reason at all to support warp. Write it for windows and cover everyone. There where enough companies creating leading word processors, and layout programs back then (that absolutely hated MS) that IBM perhaps could have pushed them. (or just bought 3 or 4 or them up to make OS/2 only software... much like Apple has done over the years) What they really needed to do was open their pockets and pay off developers to build OS/2 native programs and market the heck out of their superiority. At the very least they could have scratched out a Mac Like space. I guess at the end of the day the IBM behemoth wasn't the kinda company that would layout that much cash, and eat losses for any amount of time. Hard to imagine what the PC world would look like these days if IBM had been willing to loose money for 2-3 years to kill MS off.
 
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I liked Windows 95 but at least on the PC side, I loved OS/2 Warp. :) I remember installing it on a 10GB hard drive back then and it would boot in 30 seconds. It was just that IBM had not clue what to do with what they had and they really did not care anyways. :(

I read an artcle somewhere that OS2 still has some great features 25 years later, and it was a shame that we were deprived of an elelgant, Windowing OS. As said earlier, Gates was making Windows 3 or 3.1 better than OS2. He liked one of his offspring better.
 
Biggest mistake was letting Warp run windows software in a VM window. Developers had no reason at all to support warp. Write it for windows and cover everyone. There where enough companies creating leading word processors, and layout programs back then (that absolutely hated MS) that IBM perhaps could have pushed them. (or just bought 3 or 4 or them up to make OS/2 only software... much like Apple has done over the years) What they really needed to do was open their pockets and pay off developers to build OS/2 native programs and market the heck out of their superiority. At the very least they could have scratched out a Mac Like space. I guess at the end of the day the IBM behemoth wasn't the kinda company that would layout that much cash, and eat losses for any amount of time. Hard to imagine what the PC world would look like these days if IBM had been willing to loose money for 2-3 years to kill MS off.

It would have looked like a non existent entity today, if IBM had done that. They had no motivation to enter the consumer market and they would have just quit and left us with nothing. Microsoft was the reason we had a personal computer market at all that grew over time. Standards and knowing that what you produced would work on the most supported OS was a huge deal.

The Amiga died, OS/2 died, BeOS died, Apple nearly died and the only successful consumer facing computing company was Microsoft.
 
I read an artcle somewhere that OS2 still has some great features 25 years later, and it was a shame that we were deprived of an elelgant, Windowing OS. As said earlier, Gates was making Windows 3 or 3.1 better than OS2. He liked one of his offspring better.

I loved OS/2 but, it was not elegant and it had it's own issues that had to be dealt with. However, using Stardock Object Desktop made it a lot better. (I liked it without OD but, most would not have, just as I loved the full screen start menu but most did not.)
 
It would have looked like a non existent entity today, if IBM had done that. They had no motivation to enter the consumer market and they would have just quit and left us with nothing. Microsoft was the reason we had a personal computer market at all that grew over time. Standards and knowing that what you produced would work on the most supported OS was a huge deal.

The Amiga died, OS/2 died, BeOS died, Apple nearly died and the only successful
consumer facing computing company was Microsoft.

And all of these point and click OSes were "borrowed" from Palo Alto Xerox.
 
What really held OS/2 back was that IBM didnt want to give up their mainframe business, so they sandbagged their PC business to keep it from competing.
 
It would have looked like a non existent entity today, if IBM had done that. They had no motivation to enter the consumer market and they would have just quit and left us with nothing. Microsoft was the reason we had a personal computer market at all that grew over time. Standards and knowing that what you produced would work on the most supported OS was a huge deal.

The Amiga died, OS/2 died, BeOS died, Apple nearly died and the only successful consumer facing computing company was Microsoft.

That was sort of my point... and I agree they had no motivation. I was saying I wonder what things would look like had they. I think if someone there had some foresight and made it clear to the IBM money managers that the PC was going to produce the richest man in the world by the mid 90s... they may have changed their goals.

Yes we all know IBM was hot on selling servers and felt producing server class operating systems for PCs would be a bad idea. All I'm saying is IBM in the late 80s could have easily put MS down in less then a few years. Its why Balmer talked about Riding the Bear. MS knew exactly what IBM could do if they decided to change direction... and actually pursue the PC space as if their future depending on it. What would MS have done if IBM started buying up the major Word Processing companies, the at the time industry leading page layout software ect... and removed all windows support. Die is what they would have done. MS knew that. I do wonder what things would have looked like with out MS.... I am not saying IBM instead of MS would have made the 90s-2000s better, but it would have been very different.

Windows is going to die natural like... IBM was the only company ever really in a position to kill it with fire. (well Google is inching closer every year) lmao ;)
 
It's fascinating to hear some history from the old-timers.

We were forced to migrate to an old As400 based system at my work and while it is archaic and very limiting at times, I imagine it was the very best back in the day.
 
And all of these point and click OSes were "borrowed" from Palo Alto Xerox.

Because Xerox PARC seemed to be really good at coming up with amazing ideas, but hopeless at actually implementing them. The Alto is an amazing machine considering the time it was produced, what it could do was outright revolutionary for the 70s. The Xerox Star was even better.
 
Similarly to IBM sandbagging PCs, Kodak invented digiatl photography, but never capitalized on it, either because they didn't want to give up their film business, or because they were doing heavy drinking in the Board Room. They also invented the White OLED display technology bought by LG.
 
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Windows is going to die natural like...

People have been making this prediction for decades and while things are much different now than when Windows launched 32 years ago it endures. And that doesn't mean that it can't happen in the future but at this point if Windows dies I don't think it will because some other desktop OS took its place. I think the death of Windows will pretty much mark the end of desktop OSes as we traditionally know them and we'll be on to something else.
 
People have been making this prediction for decades and while things are much different now than when Windows launched 32 years ago it endures. And that doesn't mean that it can't happen in the future but at this point if Windows dies I don't think it will because some other desktop OS took its place. I think the death of Windows will pretty much mark the end of desktop OSes as we traditionally know them and we'll be on to something else.

I don't mean to start another stupid windows forever back and forth.

It has already gone my friend. PC... simply means personal computing. In that category windows is no longer the majority OS platform. Hasn't been for awhile. Desktop PCs is the only dominate market MS owns at this point... and its also the only market that is shrinking. As I said, windows will die a slow prolonged natural death. No big IBM or Google or Apple needs to burn money staking it, just let it go peaceful like.
 
It has already gone my friend. PC... simply means personal computing. In that category windows is no longer the majority OS platform. Hasn't been for awhile. Desktop PCs is the only dominate market MS owns at this point... and its also the only market that is shrinking. As I said, windows will die a slow prolonged natural death. No big IBM or Google or Apple needs to burn money staking it, just let it go peaceful like.

I've long said that the PCs of today are smartphones. Then there's this market for RGB keyboards, mice, headsets, hell you can buy this stuff at Walmart now along with gaming monitors. The mistake many people make in predicting the death of something that never seems to die is that it's not a zero sum game. Personal computers can wield a LOT of processing power and capability. Not everyone's needs can be met from a smartphone.

Maybe some day but nothing is standing still. We've got AMD ready to launch 32 core Threadrippers. I guess if PCs were dying why even bother with something like that?
 
People have been making this prediction for decades and while things are much different now than when Windows launched 32 years ago it endures. And that doesn't mean that it can't happen in the future but at this point if Windows dies I don't think it will because some other desktop OS took its place. I think the death of Windows will pretty much mark the end of desktop OSes as we traditionally know them and we'll be on to something else.

I think Microsoft and Apple will move on from desktop computers and something that isn't driven by profit will take their place. Many will undoubtedly disagree, but I believe it's already happening.

Desktop computing can never die as there's many tasks you can't perform efficiently on mobile devices, however there's no doubting the profitability of desktop computing has become an issue for the top dogs that have shareholders to look after. As a result it's obvious they're loosing interest. When something is driven by profit it can always die.
 
I've long said that the PCs of today are smartphones. Then there's this market for RGB keyboards, mice, headsets, hell you can buy this stuff at Walmart now along with gaming monitors. The mistake many people make in predicting the death of something that never seems to die is that it's not a zero sum game. Personal computers can wield a LOT of processing power and capability. Not everyone's needs can be met from a smartphone.

Maybe some day but nothing is standing still. We've got AMD ready to launch 32 core Threadrippers. I guess if PCs were dying why even bother with something like that?

If Smartphones replace PCs, then the human race will lose their ability to focus on anything further than 8 inches away. I will never write or create on a Smaertphone.

By the way, there is a community working on developing OS2 Warp as an open source platform.
 
I think Microsoft and Apple will move on from desktop computers and something that isn't driven by profit will take their place. Many will undoubtedly disagree, but I believe it's already happening.

This argument is far from new, it's already been happening for 20 years. When it comes to front end client computing it's not about the OS but the ecosystem. No one is going to go through the insane cost of trying to reproduce the Windows ecosystem, especially for free.
 
Remember the days when you went to buy a computer an asked for an "IBM compatible" computer?
 
This argument is far from new, it's already been happening for 20 years. When it comes to front end client computing it's not about the OS but the ecosystem. No one is going to go through the insane cost of trying to reproduce the Windows ecosystem, especially for free.

I think the term insane cost is exaggerating more than just a little and I think things are going to get interesting when Microsoft force Windows 7 out the door once and for all in favor of Windows 10.
 
I think the term insane cost is exaggerating more than just a little and I think things are going to get interesting when Microsoft force Windows 7 out the door once and for all in favor of Windows 10.

The way you're looking at it is if everyone just dropped things that only have Windows compatibility. If someone were actually trying to replicate current Windows hardware and software compatibility, yes the cost of that would be astronomical.

As for Windows 7 EOL, enterprises are already preparing for that. Gaming, that's pretty much moved over to Windows 10 for most. We've been through this before, Vista and 8, no year of Linux. Because it's not about the OS but the ecosystem.
 
This argument is far from new, it's already been happening for 20 years. When it comes to front end client computing it's not about the OS but the ecosystem. No one is going to go through the insane cost of trying to reproduce the Windows ecosystem, especially for free.

Insane cost to whom ?

The OS is already done better for free.

Productivity software is done better for free.

What is it that people would be trying to replicate ?

As Mazz has already said what is driven by profit really isn't the desktop anymore. There really isn't any money in home versions of windows, hasn't been for a long time. Apple is dragging their heals on MacOS hardware for a reason... there just isn't big profit in the market anymore. MS isn't making money on 99% of the software sold for windows... where is the profit for them, not counting consumer data. They are moving as much to the cloud and to service payment structures for a reason.

The issue for MS going forward is Open Source has taken hold... Balmer wasn't wrong Open Source is 100% the death of the MS he knew. Nadella knows that as well... which is why he has been shifting MS to the cloud.

I'm sorry but there just isn't anything the desktop does that AVERAGE consumers need anymore. Without average consumer sales numbers the PC as we know it will mostly die off. We can rail against it all we want but the truth is ya almost no one really needs a thread ripper. Of course there are pro uses for such systems... but hey in the 90s the Pros all bought very expensive Mac machines while the masses gobbled up the windows machines.

Anyway... "the insane cost of trying to reproduce the Windows ecosystem" lmao really that is just silly. Microsoft didn't go through any insane cost of creating their supposed fantastic ecosystem. Most large pro software packages are already compiled for windows, mac, and even Linux. Stop making it sound like windows software has some secret sauce that makes it windows only. 99% of todays software is written in C, C+, Python, java, Rust, Go... the majors, a massive chunk use open source frameworks like QT GTK. All that code can easily be compiled for Mac, Linux, BSD... and pretty much anything with a proper compiler. Heck even BeOS has had programs like Opera, Firefox, VLC, Blender compiled for it through the work of like one person changing some headers and building BeOS binaries.. Its not like recompiling a software source to another system is a big deal as long as its written in a major Language and uses open tool kits and frameworks (which news flash is the way its done and has been for 10+ years now) MS plays games such as messing with their compilers (non)adherence to standards... but even they seem to be giving in at last. (I would say they just realized they where loosing to many developers... and caved to try and stem the flow)
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2018/05/07/announcing-msvc-conforms-to-the-c-standard/
Yes all hail MS in May 2018... MS claims to at last have a C++ compiler that actually works. ;) Its too late to be honest... most developers are moving to Clang if they use C++. MS still has heavily used tools don't get me wrong... but more and more of the big software companies are internally moving away and systems that better support cross platform systems. (MS has been adding cross platform features to try and stem the bleeding)

Even MS has open sourced most of their frameworks at this point... because they aren't actually stupid they realized awhile back all the major software developers where using non MS tools cause they where free to do with them as they pleased. Its it strange compiling a .net piece of software for Linux or Mac... yes but is it hard ? No.

Lets go through a few....
Ableton - QT framework Adobe photoshop - QT Autodesk maya - QT Microsoft Skype - *cough* QT Source 2 tools and Cryengine editor - QT Pidgen - GTK Deluge - GTK VLC - QT Virtualbox - QT Lux render -QT Nuke - QT Calibre - QT Spotify - QT Malewarebytes - QT (ok so perhaps not a lot of point in porting windows AV software still... :))

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_widget_toolkits
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_platform-independent_GUI_libraries

My point heatle... is this "windows ecosystem" you keep going on about all the time, isn't really what you think it is. No major software developers anywhere use closed windows only APIs for anything anymore. There is no massive list of windows only software anymore I'm sorry. Even the few that only compile for windows are using frameworks and toolkits that would allow them to compile for say MacOS and iOS or ChromeOS / Android with very little work, in most cases compiling for another system is really nothing but changing a few flags when they compile. Games are perhaps the last bit of software where the industry is still fairly glued to a closed system specific API (directx) and even that is changing.
 
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The way you're looking at it is if everyone just dropped things that only have Windows compatibility. If someone were actually trying to replicate current Windows hardware and software compatibility, yes the cost of that would be astronomical.

As for Windows 7 EOL, enterprises are already preparing for that. Gaming, that's pretty much moved over to Windows 10 for most. We've been through this before, Vista and 8, no year of Linux. Because it's not about the OS but the ecosystem.

No it wouldn't.

The Windows ecosystem, is only rich in your own colorful imagination and alternatives to Windows didn't exactly start up last week and aren't as barren as your imagination believes them to be. If Windows dropped dead tomorrow, which it won't, the process will be gradual, desktop computing would go on and on and on just fine.

Not a personal attack, but it's obvious you do have quite a biased imagination when it comes to Microsoft based products. Probably more than most here.

Besides, times are changing and the cloud is going to replace conventional desktop applications for web based alternatives - Especially considering the amount of money Microsoft are making from web based solutions, it's only a matter of time before they push the platform further.
 
The OS is already done better for free.

Productivity software is done better for free.

There's two decades of history on this subject. Your conclusions here are far from fact. If free were as good as you make it out to be, no one today would be using Windows or Microsoft Office or Photoshop, etc. The beauty of Windows is that virtually all significant client software is compatible. Install and use whatever you want. I've been running LibreOffice and Microsoft Office side by side for years along with many other open source apps.

What is it that people would be trying to replicate ?

Something as simple as having the software for a gaming RGB keyboard available. Or being able to by any type of PC that one can get running Windows with Linux pre-installed.
The issue for MS going forward is Open Source has taken hold... Balmer wasn't wrong Open Source is 100% the death of the MS he knew. Nadella knows that as well... which is why he has been shifting MS to the cloud.

Everyone is in the cloud now, it's the evolution of computing from the disconnected to the connected and it's impacting everything and everyone in both good and bad ways.

I'm sorry but there just isn't anything the desktop does that AVERAGE consumers need anymore

I've never argued otherwise. It's not zero sum game and not everyone's' needs are average. AMD is about to launch a 32 core desktop CPU. Qualcomm is making the most powerful ARM SoCs they've ever made designed specifically to run Windows 10.

Without average consumer sales numbers the PC as we know it will mostly die off.


But if the market that is left is spending a lot more money, people who were buying cheap laptops don't matter as much. high core count CPUs, powerful GPUs, G-sync/Freesync monitors, keyboards, mice, games, VR setups, etc. For a dying market there's more to by in the PC market than ever. Sure it's not for average consumers, but average enough that you can walk into a Walmart these days and buy a lot of this stuff.

My point heatle... is this "windows ecosystem" you keep going on about all the time, isn't really what you think it is.

Of course it is and it's been obvious for decades. I get that not everyone needs all of that capability and flexibility but the ones that do are willing to spend money because there are no other options.
 
The Windows ecosystem, is only rich in your own colorful imagination and alternatives to Windows didn't exactly start up last week and aren't as barren as your imagination believes them to be.

A person goes into a Walmart, buys an RGB keyboard that's on sale. Goes home to plug into their gaming Linux machine and control software isn't Linux compatible. We're not talking science fiction here. These things are on store shelves in many Walmarts these days in the US. There might be 3rd party alternatives and workarounds but who'd know without research?

Not a personal attack, but it's obvious you do have quite a biased imagination when it comes to Microsoft based products. Probably more than most here.

Right, my Corsair K95 Platinum keyboard is a Microsoft product. I think this is were the disconnect on ecosystems occurs. Someone buys a keyboard or a mouse or gaming headset or whatever that's got NOTHING to do with Microsoft. But whatever that product is, it's almost guaranteed support under Windows.

Besides, times are changing and the cloud is going to replace conventional desktop applications for web based alternatives - Especially considering the amount of money Microsoft are making from web based solutions, it's only a matter of time before they push the platform further.

Very possible. Which is why I say that if Windows dies off its not going to be from desktop Linux or another classic desktop OS. It'll be something else.
 
A person goes into a Walmart, buys an RGB keyboard that's on sale. Goes home to plug into their gaming Linux machine and control software isn't Linux compatible. We're not talking science fiction here. These things are on store shelves in many Walmarts these days in the US. There might be 3rd party alternatives and workarounds but who'd know without research?



Right, my Corsair K95 Platinum keyboard is a Microsoft product. I think this is were the disconnect on ecosystems occurs. Someone buys a keyboard or a mouse or gaming headset or whatever that's got NOTHING to do with Microsoft. But whatever that product is, it's almost guaranteed support under Windows.



Very possible. Which is why I say that if Windows dies off its not going to be from desktop Linux or another classic desktop OS. It'll be something else.

Out of all the PC users, very few actually use RGB keyboards from Walmart. If you want to use an RGB keyboard from Walmart, use Windows. However don't be under the impression that Microsoft are going to continue supporting Windows the way you believe it should be just because you like playing games.

Mac users don't appear to be bothered by the lack of RGB keyboards.
 
Out of all the PC users, very few actually use RGB keyboards from Walmart. If you want to use an RGB keyboard from Walmart, use Windows. However don't be under the impression that Microsoft are going to continue supporting Windows the way you believe it should be just because you like playing games.

Mac users don't appear to be bothered by the lack of RGB keyboards.

And this is just more of discounting the Windows ecosystem. I find that extremely odd in a place like this forum that's so focused on products of this ecosystem. Places like this keep people "trapped" in Windows far beyond my ability to do so.
 
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