Windows | Microsoft's Biggest Mistake

[@nationsquid]

Head to www.squarespace.com/NationSquid to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code NATIONSQUID.

[@jonahplayscello]

Cool

[@FightingTable]

Nice

[@atu7t]

This video was made 2 hours ago but this comment was made 1 day ago. Huh?

[@jonahplayscello]

@@atu7tmost people upload the video as private then publish it later so youtube can process it

[@WinMacLinux772]

Bro, I am using windows,

[@phirenz]

The premise of this video is a little flawed. Windows 1.0 wasn't trying to compete against MacOS, even if that was a common comparison that journalists of the day made. Instead, Microsoft was desperately trying to compete against all the other GUIs that sat on top of DOS. It was a rapidly expanding market segment that arose in the wake of the Macintosh, and whoever one that race would gain a massive foothold and potentially de-throne Microsoft, replacing MS-DOS. We are talking about VisiCorp's Visi On, IBM's TopView, Digital Research's GEM and Lotus' Symphony. They all operated as regular programs running on top of DOS and had similar capabilities. Everyone has forgotten about these programs today, but that's because Microsoft's strategy with Windows worked.

[@nikolaipasko]

Exactly. So i still don’t understand what was the biggest mistake for MS.

[@chrisellis4400]

I'm not disagreeing with you but back in the day the Mac guys teased us PC by calling Windows "..a colourful clown-suit for DOS".

[@transsexual_computer_faery]

woooooow i didnt know DOS had window managers like linux does hehehhe

[@thejunkman]

@@chrisellis4400 Windows (and DOS) was for people that did work. MacOS was for people liked to think about the idea of working.

[@gwgux]

I was going to post this. I was a kid in the 1980s, but was growing around around a lot of IBMers and many of them had their own GUI they preferred to run on top of DOS at the time when I was first learning about computers. Most of them never bothered with Windows until 3.1 came out.

[@ThePeterDislikeShow]

When I was a kid I used to think the number "billion" was named after Bill Gates, because he was the first billionaire.

[@staringcorgi6475]

That was rockefeller domestically speaking

[@scoobooyt]

Logic checks out though

[@GreatMossWater]

Full name is Billionaire Gates

[@CadeAver]

Ngl I thought the same thing as a kid

[@mrkitty777]

They were Microsoft of Borg, division was futile, we were approximated, and became a 1 or 0 in the floating point unit, our technology they Microsoft of Borg sold as if their own. 😢😢😢

[@mackback319]

we need to remake Steve Ballmer Sells Dirty Windows with the little Gill Bates intro

[@bibasik7]

cs188 is a national treasure

[@Citadel_Station_AI_666]

and IT'S WWWIIINNNDDDOOOWWWSSS!!! don't forget that one.

[@A_ARAFAT]

"It's an Incredible P.O.S from Microsoft ORDER TODAY!! " -From that cs188 video. also, the "Steve Ballmer Sells Clean Windows."

[@timbledon32]

e x c e p t f o r n e b r a s k a

[@Citadel_Station_AI_666]

@@A_ARAFAT "ORDER A SOFT TACO TODAY!"

[@Emancipatriot]

Windows and Mac were both products of bill and Steve seeing the xerox machines. Glad you brought them up. It’s a shame Xerox never really got into the game themselves. They stuck with their own corner of the market.

[@judewestburner]

Yeah paper copying 😀

[@kreuner11]

They were netbooting via Ethernet in the 70s, crazy stuff

[@2crude2crudeofficialband3]

Xerox’s GUI was never going to be a commercial product for average consumers. The parts alone for an Alto cost $13,000 so if it had gone commercial it would have been probably around $25,000. There was the Star later on but that was a really expensive high-end workstation that, again, wasn’t aimed at consumers.

[@I.____.....__...__]

@@2crude2crudeofficialband3 Corporations, including are so ravenous to patent stuff, it's baffling that they didn't paten the heck out of the WIMP paradigm. 🤨

[@squirlmy]

They also had a very advanced "LISP-machine" to compete with Symbolics. Inc. It was way cooler than most minicomputers, but had a reputation as being too complicated for ordinary folks to use.

[@bchristian85]

Windows didn't really become popular until 3.0. 2.x was a little better than 1.0, but it still wasn't overly popular.

[@CommodoreFan64]

Yep, and when Win 3.11 for Workgroups came out it really blew up making networking easier.

[@bchristian85]

This had a lot to do with it. Win 3.11 for Workgroups became ubiquitous in offices in the early to mid 90s. More people wanted Windows at home because they became used to using it at work.@@CommodoreFan64

[@I.____.....__...__]

Windows 1 (ie Windows Executive) was just DOSShell++. 😒 (But it didn't even have the Hot Pink color-scheme. 🤦)

[@mchenrynick]

More specifically, Windows 3.1 in 1992. I took a computer applications course at a business college in 1991, and everything was in MS-DOS without using the Windows GUI. This was the industry standard back then.

[@Chuck_vs._The_Comment_Section]

I'm almost at the end of the video now and I still haven't figured out why Windows was supposedly Microsoft's biggest mistake. I would argue that Windows in general, and version 3 in particular, was an absolute godsend for MS. With this operating system they were able to displace their competitors, establish themselves as a monopolist and eventually become one of the most valuable companies in the world. But what do I know? I'm not a wide-reaching KZbinr, I'm just someone who has been intensively involved and informed about these events as a hobby.

[@medes5597]

There's a lot of errors in this video, the fact he didn't justify the title is the least of its worries. Like all modern day retrospectives by people who don't know what they're talking about, it overstates the mac and its success and influence, acts like jobs accusing windows of copying him was justified and not something that even his closest advisors thought was insane because GUIs were literally the thing everyone in the valley was working on (like AI today basically), it gives the macintosh a cachet it didn't have (it wasn't considered the punk rock machine, it was considered a safe business computer that was underpowered for that task and over priced, so no one bought one. And so on.

[@I.____.....__...__]

@@medes5597 Meh, at least the kid is trying. Most zoomers don't even know anything before 2000 exists, they think the world popped into existence after they were born. 🙄 Most people are like that to some degree, but zoomers are exceptionally about that. 😒 They think the stuff that references older stuff IS the real stuff instead of just an allusion. 🤦

[@lemonedtoast]

@@I.____.....__...__ that is the cringiest generalization

[@nikolaipasko]

@@I.____.....__...__ Yeah, you don't tell. Just imagine that people nowadays don't know that exactly the same was being told about Generation Y. And about Generation X before that...

[@mchenrynick]

@@medes5597 He never mentions or shows GEOS on the Commodore 64 either...

[@hullstar242]

Then original macOS wasn’t exactly watered down xerox os. There’s an example of an software engineer that swears he saw overlapping windows on Xerox’s computer so he tried to recreate it and did successfully because he believed it to be possible just to find out later xerox had not figured out overlapping windows yet. He had just remembered wrong! I’m pretty sure it was in the Steve Jobs book by Walter you cited,

[@matticolo]

I know, but the Macintosh is still called “The biggest theft in computer history” (or something like this), it was Xerox’s innovations after all. But according to Steve Job’s biography, they actually bought that technology, not stole it, as they actually made a deal with Xerox to enter the PARC.

[@Epic_C]

Xerox never took it to market, and apparently their executives didn't want to put more time and resources into it. Xerox had something but they never moved forward with it. Thus Jobs took the idea they were not going forward with and made it his own. Then Microsoft blatantly stole the ideas that Jobs was running with when they were trying to work with them for the Office products.

[@henryfleischer404]

@@Epic_C " Xerox had something but they never moved forward with it. " Pretty much sums up Xerox Parc Alto.

[@judewestburner]

How beautiful is that little twist of history

[@lucymorrison]

The early days of personal computing were just companies copying what other companies copied and the cycle repeating

[@kaitlyn__L]

That lower energy delivery of Ballmer’s joke video is actually even funnier than the original. Well done

[@jonahplayscello]

Finally, a normal upload rather than a premiere

[@captainpoptarts]

Makes it easier to download so i can save it for later Yay

[@jonahplayscello]

@@captainpoptartsdo you have premium or something?

[@MizunoKetsuban]

Why exactly does it matter one way or another?

[@jonahplayscello]

@@MizunoKetsubanbecause now we can play it at 2x speed and can skip the sponsor segment

[@Otinikミ]

FR FR

[@pmarprj2108]

Windows 9x being called an MS-DOS program is a glaring error that almost every video gets wrong 9x just uses MS-DOS as a bootloader, and has its own kernel and includes MS-DOS virtualization its the same as the relation between GRUB and Linux

[@thunderbolt10031]

You are absolutely correct. This is why you couldn’t simply exit to DOS, you had to reboot your PC to enter DOS.

[@nickwallette6201]

This really bothers me, too. It's a sentiment that has been repeated for years, mostly out of ignorance. There aren't that many people in the world that truly understand how the Windows kernel really worked back then, so it's just easier to parrot the existing cargo-cult wisdom. I get it. But it's still not technically accurate, and it's unfortunate that it gets carried forward now, even when people like Raymond Chen have gone on the record with better detail. If it keeps getting repeated enough, it'll become "the truth" just by sheer volume and a dwindling population left to dispel the myth.

[@I.____.....__...__]

@@nickwallette6201 Except for the fact that you could boot into DOS and type "win" to run Windows, just like every other DOS program. So in what way does that not count as a "DOS program"? 🤨 Technical details are irrelevant to anyone but devs; for all intents and purposes, Windows was a DOS program. 🤷 Arguing it's not is like trying to argue that COM files aren't EXE files because they don't include a header, start at offset 100h, and must be

[@nickwallette6201]

@@I.____.....__...__ Around 2000, Be Inc. released BeOS 5 - an alternative OS written from scratch. Not Unix. Not DOS. Not Windows. A totally bespoke kernel, a proprietary file system, its own set of system services that BeOS applications could use for networking, multimedia, printing, etc. But, of course, being a new, from-scratch OS, it had a limited pool of applications, so even though it made the of-the-time limited hardware fly like nothing else you would’ve seen at the time, it didn’t take over the market. So they tried to coexist. They even released BeOS 5 Personal Edition - free. The main limitation is that it lived in a 500MB image file. You couldn’t install it to a disk partition like the Pro Edition. It seemed fair, for a free OS. To launch it, you had an icon on your existing Windows desktop. It would shut down Windows and launch the BeOS kernel, and you could use it like any other full OS. It just happened to reside in a large file on a FAT volume. But, I guess, since you had to execute the file from Windows, that would make this whole OS just a “Windows program”? And since, as you say, Win9x was just a DOS program itself, that would make this 32-bit, preemptive multitasking, real-time OS itself … just “a DOS program.” Got it. Facts don’t matter. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but says “made it China” on it, it’s still definitely a genuine duck. 🤷‍♂️

[@nickwallette6201]

@@I.____.....__...__ By the way, BAT files execute, too. If you want to be generous, so do SCR and PIF files. If you double-click on a WRI file that is associated with Write, it will launch that application. Those are all exe files too then, I suppose? Ergo, my Excel spreadsheets are DOS programs?

[@JeffRyman69]

My first PC (a 286 white box system) in 1987 had an EGA card and monitor. A copy of Windows 1.x was included with the EGA card. I never installed it. It was simply an overlay on MS-DOS that I didn't need because I understood how to use MS-DOS commands.

[@helljumper912]

I have a cookie for you here. It's really tasty, made with no-one gives a fuck

[@I.____.....__...__]

EGA? Ah, lucky. I struggled to get PC Painbrush (later renamed MSPaint) to run at all, let alone with a mouse (stupid frieze loader), and use it in CGA, disappointed that cyan, red, black, and white wouldn't make for very interesting graphics. Then disappointed again when PCPaint wasn't any better. I still like _Life&Death_ despite the same CGA color palette though.

[@DanielleWhite]

I had a Leading Edge 286 and was given a copy of Windows 2.1. I did install it to do what it was and removed it not long after.

[@Ezyasnos]

Plus it was a resource hog

[@MickeyMousePark]

1984-1985 was a software/hardware arms race...Top 3 manufactures were Apple--Tandy--Commodore (Apple and Tandy were swapping first and second place a few times..Tandy becoming the leader until the late 1980s...Commodore solid 3rd with the C-64)...Apple was first with a graphical environment in January 1984 and Tandy was second in November 1984 with DeskMate and Microsoft Windows trailing a year later

[@helljumper912]

"Oh, that's really cool and interesting" said no one fucking ever.

[@MickeyMousePark]

@@helljumper912 agreed just trivia context for that period of time from the video..

[@D.S69]

that is cool and intresting

[@Senor_Gago]

Oh, that's really cool and interesting

[@lions_mane_jellyfish]

That is very cool and interesting!

[@PipiRoe]

So why was it Microsoft's biggest mistake?

[@matthewrobinson1699]

My bet is that it almost failed.

[@squirlmy]

I would say it's share presently falling to Linux (even if it's mostly servers), can be traced to Microsoft abandoning Xenix and going all in on Dos-based Windows -will be seen as their big mistake. Imagine a world where almost everyone used Microsoft Xenix!

[@kraosdadafusfus8034]

It wasn't really a mistake for MS. I'd say Windows was more like IBM's biggest mistake, as it took over the market intended for OS/2 right beneath their noses and caused their downfall in the PC industry.

[@silverdust9176]

Not releasing xbox 720

[@NothingToSeeHere1977]

The title is just a click bait that's all.

[@JamesR624]

How fitting that this video, about the very start of “Personal Computing” is uploaded the same day all the reviews of and the dawn of “Spatial Computing” are revealed. I think of the 4 waves like this: - Computing (IBM Mainframes, etc) 1940s-1970s - Personal Computing (The Commodore, The Mac, Windows PC, etc) 1970’s-2000’s - Mobile Computing (BlackBerry, The Sidekick, iPhone, Android, etc.) 2000’s-2020s - Spatial Computing (Vision Pro, ???, ???, etc) 2020s-20?? And my god, the sheer poetic irony that the very first GUI demo that inspired what became Windows and what people know as personal computing was called “VisiOn”? Wow

[@jescis]

The Mac was 1980's(starting in 1984), Apple ][ was '77 to '86(Apple IIGS was a couple years after the Mac and was in COLOR, with a GUI), Macintosh was initially only Black and white…

[@kittenzrulz]

Quest 3 can easily fit into the spacial computing wave (it runs full android apps)

[@medes5597]

The first GUI demo was called "the mother of all demos", Jobs and Gates were both cribbing from Xerox Alto/Star, and VisiOn was a product that bankrupted the inventors of VisiCalc. Gates just realised that GUIs on top of DOS was something he needed to get in sooner than he'd intended to after seeing a demo of it. Microsoft had always had the idea of a GUI for IBM compatibles because practically every company thought GUIs were on the way. And I remain unconvinced that spatial computing is going to be a dominant market sector. Edit - and I take huge issue with your waves concept. People were still asking if "personal home computers" were even a thing in _1990_ , and it massively overstates how popular computers were pre-Windows 95 and how influential the Internet was. Your first wave needs to be divided into three at minimum.

[@squirlmy]

@@medes5597 exactly. I personally haven't heard of "spacial computing" WTF? and it's not irony "that the very first GUI demo that inspired what became Windows and what people know as personal computing was called VisiOn”, even if it weren't Xerox, irony "exploits a contradiction, incongruity, or incompatibility between the two levels." Arguable I guess, but the name would have been more fittingly "prophetic" perhaps, It's totally appropriate instead, separated by time from the present (I guess?)

[@vikingthedude]

13:09 Scary how younger Gates looked so much like Zucc

[@pencilcase8068]

They are all lizard men trying to take over the work

[@adamsfusion]

14:42 this is strictly untrue. Windows 95 and upward were full OS's, _not_ operating environments on top of DOS. While there is an MS-DOS layer that starts the system, when the GUI starts, it unloads MS-DOS and reloads it as a 16-bit compatibility layer within dedicated virtual machines (VDMs). By the time you saw the Windows' logo, you were no longer in MS-DOS at all.

[@Thiesi]

In addition, Windows 2000 was the first version of Windows to start without DOS that also had a consumer-targeted edition meant for home use, not Windows XP.

[@somedudenamedzack]

This is actually true. Windows 95 ran on top of MS-DOS 7.0 just like windows 3.1, but win 95 came bundled with DOS 7.0 and it starts automatically. What you’re thinking of is windows NT, which was it’s own OS.

[@somedudenamedzack]

@@Thiesiit was windows NT 3.1 that was the first to not need DOS, not win 2k

[@Thiesi]

@@somedudenamedzack Right. So what was the _consumer-targeted edition meant for home use_ of Windows NT? Oh, there was none.

[@somedudenamedzack]

@@Thiesi I misunderstood your first comment, sorry. But the “home edition” of win 2k was Win ME, which was still DOS-based (DOS 8.0). Win XP Home edition was the first consumer targeted version of windows based on win NT, as win 2k was still targeted towards professionals, workstations, servers, etc.

[@infernal-toad]

I honestly feel like it’s too early to make a documentary video about Windows 10 and 11, so seeing you talk about the very first windows version is a blessing.

[@danielvest9602]

Windows was not an operating system until 1995 - it was just a windowing system overlay on msdos

[@DustinBernier]

correct, and I hated it. lol. DOS4LIFE

[@JimmerofOz]

Windows 95 was also a windowing system over DOS, Windows NT was a proper full stack OS but the NT technology wouldnt make its 'home user' debut until 2001 with Windows XP

[@trevgauntletneu_gaming]

In an alternate timeline: Prepare to open the potential of your computer: Macrohard Doors.

[@ConclusiveLion663]

In a parallel universe...

[@fayelinae]

I love that there's something Beatles-related in every single video of yours :D Edit: Ha! 10:56, I knew it!

[@dracoix]

I WAS going to sleep, but then NS releases a video. I guess I can wait another 20mins.

[@Ṯaxəṣ]

Yeah, this wasn't the title I had in mind... Damn, 36 seconds ago

[@dhpbear2]

15:13 - I notice the MS-DOS screen 'underneath' Windows 1.0! Was this a 'feature'?

[@mchenrynick]

13:45 What's with the lyrics to Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls"???

[@gabe_s_videos]

I now understand the line in Epic Rap Battles of History: Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates about "the GUI that Melinda (Gates) uses."

[@Rivaldofelpsnapelvis]

I think it will be great to see you cover other tech stories, like the story of the comodore amiga, gpl license, sun microsystems, SGI, linux distros histories. I don't know if it falls off the limits of this channel but still it would be fun to watch.

[@Ṯaxəṣ]

I love how he's attempting humor and it's successful

[@shawn.the.alien423]

You looked less like Bill Gates, and more like Steve Jobs cosplaying as Bill Gates.

[@sweetbabyalaska]

You should talk about some of the Linux lore at some point. Its honestly really rich and interesting

[@DevJeremi]

"Operating Environment" ? I think that more proper term is "Desktop Environment" - this is how stuff like Gnome, KDE, etc. ("Windows 1.0" for Linux) are called.

[@steeviebops]

"Windows 1.0" for Linux - sounds like tiling window managers to me!

[@chomskyan4life]

Calling Apple "punk" is like calling Kissinger a humanitarian.

[@CommodoreFan64]

if anyone in the computing space at the time could have been called a "punk" it was Commodore with the Amiga line, that was ahead of both Apple, and Microsoft. Hell even Atari was ahead with the ST line in what they could do compared to MS, and Apple.

[@Ezyasnos]

@@CommodoreFan64 Atari ST was a very sane choice back in the day; if you needed colour, for say presentations of reports, you could hook it up to a TV; if you needed to work with it for a long time, the hi-res 72hz monochrome monitor would be much easier on the eye. And it was BY FAR the cheapest of all 16+ bits computers. But AmigaOS was lightyears ahead of all the competition, and the preemptive multitasking was really an underrated productivity feat back in the day.

[@baspostscrap]

Nobody is talking about that Nickelodeon Blimp 💀(yes i know what that is, it is a prize from the kids choice awards)

[@Bush_Dog777]

Where, when

[@ThunderFox227]

I have never heard someone say "gewy" rather than "gee, yu, eye"

[@tharii314]

Laughed so hard at the command line frustration snippets "I JUST WANT TO RUN WORDSTAR DAMMIT"

[@felixmckinney7132]

I saw the thumbnail while looking at another which was one of those True Scary stories videos. Imagine my concern when I saw the words “We failed.” Right below it

[@MohammedHK876]

14:52 the files on the desktop💀💀

[@joeplayedthis]

I love reference made at 10:56 to the interview scene from A Hard Day's Night! Well done!

[@starleaf-luna]

3:55 skip the sponsor

[@astronautwashere]

1:03 did anyone else see the face there? and i don't mean nationsquid's face, the one behind edit its the damn painting

[@nikolaipasko]

Struggled through the whole video of well-known facts and didn’t get the answer to the question posed in the title. :(

[@GSutton]

Everyone's talking about the history of personal computers, but I just want to know the answer to that eternal question: do you choose the hard or soft option?

[@perejurado1478]

I loved the reference to Pet Shop Boys' "West end girls". Great video.

[@JakeReeves123]

I have so many questions about the clip at 16:57 - was this from marketing at the time?? “This is not an NFT”??

[@EcoKeecko]

No he just made that on Windows 1.0 and took a video of it

[@darthsidusfan]

10AM reverse colonoscopy appointment 12PM Burn restraining order If i didn't just catch it would have totally snuck past me 14:36

[@Teilz.]

Happy to see a little cameo of Michael MJD

[@georgeh6856]

1. A lot early home computers from the 1970 and 80s, like those mocked in this video, used the BASIC interpreter as their interface. On most of those systems, that BASIC was created by Microsoft. 2. MS-DOS was not created by Microsoft; Microsoft bought it and then licensed it to IBM for the PC. MS before that was mainly a BASIC interpreter company. 3. Preemptive multitasking did not come to consumer Windows until 2001. But it didn't come to Macintosh either until 2001. It was built into AmigaOS in 1985 and IBM OS/2 in 1987.

[@chriswatts3697]

Well, the GUI was not new. It wasn't available for everyone, but it was known. There were a lot of reports about LISA before the Mac started. So people that were interested knew about a mouse and a GUI. And in the end, the Alto was a computer 1975 showing that a GUI is interesting. But not too many people could get to the usage of an Alto.

[@borjie2727]

Thank you Mister Bates for showing us this video.

[@i-use-4rch-btw]

Why does bro sound like Bill Gates impersonating GLaDOS in the intro wtf

[@Randy.E.R]

Thank you for this video. Not sure how it wound up in my feed, but I was glad that I watched it. You know, I didn’t get my first PC until 1996 when I was 32 years old. It seemed everyone had a computer except me, so I felt left out. I had no need for a PC and had no clue how to use one. I guess it was one of those things that I felt like I needed in my home. My brother gave me my first PC and set it up in our home, a Gateway with Windows 95. After he left, my wife and I were like “okay, what the hell do we do with it?” Our daughter player solitaire on it from time to time, but for the most part it sat there looking pretty. Long story short, I never got into owning a PC since my job rarely requires the use of a computer. Last year my brother bought me a Macbook. For some reason, he has bought every computer that’s ever been in my home. I don’t know what happened, but I absolutely love that Macbook. I have no explanation why it took me 27 years to start enjoying having a computer. Thanks to your video I understand the evolution a little better

[@greglovekamp]

How much did Microsoft kick your way to help them revise history? Even in Gates’ TV analogy, Jobs had “stolen” from Xerox FIRST. Gates was “enlightened” by designing for Macintosh, not studying the same GUI mindset for years. I enjoy youth and enthusiasm, but not when that attempts to subvert truth known to those of us who lived through those times.

[@alonebysunset]

no, the first ever computer to have a GUI was the NLS/oNLine System from 1968, which was also the first time a mouse ever showed up. this was from a demo called the "mother of all demos" by Dr. Engelbart if I have the spelling correct, and was a 1 of a kind system, but for $32k in 1973 money, who are they selling the Altos to?

[@Ṯaxəṣ]

The early windows clock kinda looks like pixel art from a five year old lol

[@midnightlumina7]

The real funny thing about it is that Xerox....Is now famous for their photocopiers, while it was a victim of people Copying their ideas.

[@ez45]

The Macintosh was not Apple's first computer with a GUI. Not by a long shot, the project started when the Lisa was already shipping. It is modern propaganda that hyped the Apple Macintosh in the minds of people, and only because it was Steve Jobs' personal pet project. The II GS was the superior product.

[@UncleKennybobs]

I never once thought that Mac had the first GUI

[@henryfleischer404]

Early windows sounds a lot like X11 or Wayland along with a Desktop Environment. It's kind of funny how Linux still has that architecture, although it makes sense considering how the OS is developed. I wonder if OSX does, I could swear I saw something like a Linux TTY on OSX Snow Leopard once.

[@kittenzrulz]

It makes sense when you think about it, Linux not being integrated with any desktop allows developers to make whatever DE or WM they want and distro developers choose which one/ones to maintain for the distro.

[@nickwallette6201]

No, they aren't particularly similar. For one, Unix of course already existed, and Microsoft even had their own flavor of it. It didn't take off on the PC, largely because its core strengths didn't scale well down to the current state of personal computer hardware. The similarities to X were superficial -- they both presented graphics to a user, and accepted input from the user. They both were used with core desktop utilities featuring a similar look, like the clock and calculator. But at the time, that aesthetic similarity was mostly because the system's graphics performance could only accommodate basic lines and shapes. Style and personality was a luxury nobody had. Polygons in the shape of a clock face could scale better than the built-in bitmap fonts could. But in the way they worked, the philosophy of the architecture, they were as different as two environments could be. However, yes, OS X has a lot more in common with Linux / Unix. There is a lot about OS X's architecture that is based on POSIX. The kernel derives from Unix. The file system layout does too. The primary command-line interface runs a shell like those found in typical Linux distros. Apple even had their own X server, which I've used to run applications from Linux. I also do quite a bit of coding in C that I keep in a Subversion repo and transfer back and forth between Mac and Linux. I aim to have everything compile and run under Linux with gcc and Mac with clang, unless it's designed to run specifically on one OS or the other, and with the exception of features that are unique to the platform, that takes very little effort to do. Ditto perl and a few shell scripts.

[@sashakoshka]

early windows has nothing in common with X or wayland. windows programs were more like plugins, and multitasking was managed by windows and not DOS. the reason for this is that DOS doesn't really have a concept of multitasking and can only run one program at once. windows wasn't just a windowing system, it was a operating system-ish thing that ran on top of the real operating system. on linux/unix, multitasking is already implemented by the OS and the window server is a program that communicates with concurrently running client programs using a network socket and shared memory. this allows for a greater degree of versatility and modularity, something that windows lacks even today.

[@cirkulx]

-s nvram flag (single user mode)?

[@s_ludge]

"MacIntosh was for the rebels, those who were sticking it to the man. It was the punk rock of computers." Not something I'd expect to hear, especially in the current year haha. Great video as always, that skit as Bill Gates was hilarious and I always appreciate your accompanying visuals.

[@nickwallette6201]

Not exactly true, either. Apple was very much poking IBM in the eye, sure. But the people that used it weren't doing so because they thought it was cool. That was a motif that developed because the niche that the Macintosh developed was better suited to creative industries, where IBM PCs catered to business needs. Nobody using a computer was "punk rock" at the time.

[@dhpbear2]

13:45 - I remember detractors saying that Windows (3.1 at the time) was not an operating system, it was a *PROGRAM* ! I tend to agree. Back in the days of MS-DOS, one only ran Windows when they *had* to! Running it on those slow machines, it really was like doing time! :(

[@chickennoodlesoup2794]

So excited for this! Love this channel!

[@daneiyt5646]

Something about the thumbnail was so subtle so Perfect god damn Mr Squid.

[@Cavi587]

The biggest mistake of the computer world was not bringing Unix to the masses. Windows and Macintosh were first and stole the show while Unix based systems had about 15 years of development and software at the time Windows came out. And because of Windows we're stuck in a world where the professional computing world and the home computer world are vastly different and mostly non-compatible. It probably set back computing by a good few years. Everyone lost because of that. Windows to this day has little professional tools and Unix based systems are poor in everyday desktop entertainment/multimedia applications. Of course because of Linux and the open source community there's a lot of really good software and Linux desktop is a really good alternative to Windows and Mac in 2024, but it took years to crawl back to this position.

[@ACatCalledSnow]

Can you also do a video about the Commodore Amiga home computer, Workbench, and how advanced it all was for the time? Before sadly failing. Keep up the good work.

[@ENEL7]

GUI = gooey is just too funny I love it

[@RKingis]

One of their biggest mistakes was Killing classic Visual Basic. VB5&6 are still running platforms for corporate environments.

[@MrReese]

"That credit would go to Xerox" - basically true for several essential inventions in the PC world we take for granted these days :D. 14:42 *Windows 2000 enters the chat*

[@k4jusz3k]

i love how this video was uploaded at 5am in my country

[@timgajzer2608]

Correction. The first consumer Windows version that was a true OS was Windows 95. Based on the 9X kernel. XP was a homogenization of home and professional sectors combining the ease of use and speed of consumer Windows, with the ease of development and stability of the NT Kernel.

[@flatzoney]

Another fire nation vid. Never fails to keep me up at night watching high quality content lol.

[@aruan7sp]

I feel like Windows 2 is even more forgotten than its predecessor. At least Windows 1 has the legacy of being the first one, even if it wasn't good.

[@TheJacklikesvideos]

14:35 "reverse colonoscopy appointment" that's to treat backwards benjamin button disease, right?

[@raxadian]

Actually computers in 1985 were really expensive it was until almost a decade later that prices were much more reasonable, just in time for Windows 95 to take the world by storm.

[@klc3rd]

Correct me if I’m wrong. Didn’t Windows switch fully to the NT kernel with Windows 2000, not XP? [edit] I’m talking about for a consumer OS, not Windows NT, I thought of 2000 as a consumer/workstation OS

[@Ts6451]

Windows 2000 was intended for professional workstations and servers like the older versions of NT. The consumer Windows of the time was Windows ME.

[@zerocooler7]

No, Windows XP was the first time that the NT kernel was marketed to everyone. XP was the successor to ME and 2000.

[@Wind2000channel]

Since Windows NT 3.1 (It's completely based on its own kernel). Windows 9x and Windows NT are different, even Windows NT 3.x, NT 4.0 and 2000 is Windows, that are not based on DOS.

[@klc3rd]

@@Wind2000channel well I know there was Windows NT, I was assuming the video meant specifically for the consumer line, hence going directly to XP. Someone else mentioned 2000 was for workstations, I had just remembered 2000 running on several personal PCs so I kind of thought of it as an in between consumer/workstation. I kind of thought of it going from 98-ME-2000-XP

[@klc3rd]

@@Ts6451 ah gotcha, I just remembered 2000 being used on several personal computers, so I thought it was a consumer OS, I kind of thought of it as a mix of consumer/workstation

[@ceebee23]

in the DOS space was IBM's VisionON and of course Digital Research's GEM which was a real threat to MS.

[@bloodystatic4156]

Did you forget the fact that the Antikthera mechanism exists?!?

[@Konic_and_Snuckles]

Man, that Bill Gates impression was spot on.

[@kebab_hill]

Windows XP was not the first Windows "Operating System" it was way more further than that To simply put, what makes an OS an OS is that it has it's own kernel, in this case, Windows 9X kernels had protected mode which made it possible to run a bunch of programs in fact, the first thing to fully introduce this was Windows 3.0 which is the first Windows first success to the market. Now, even with it requiring MS-DOS, it still is an Operating System, because MS-DOS is just the bootloader for Windows from 3.0 to ME, to explain this, MS-DOS boots "WIN,COM" which is commonly in the folder named "WINDOWS" now when that's loaded, the DOS's kernel is simply out, and it introduces the 9X kernel, now, as to why Windows 9x was able to use MS-DOS while running it is another explanation. In the NT Family, the first ever should be "Windows NT 3.1" as it is the first Windows OS to ever use the NT Kernel, but even with that, it works the same way as how MS-DOS boots Windows 9X, and yes, the NT Kernel has a similar MS-DOS that boots up Windows, except, more complicated and advanced which what drove Windows XP to success. and if you do think about it, ever since Windows became an operating system, it drove the thing into success.

[@JimmerofOz]

If we're talking about 1985 might I also mention the Commodore Amiga released that year with a menu and mouse driven multitasking GUI

[@ryanmclaren8570]

Who calls a command line ugly??? The command line is a beautiful interface

[@Victormikel1025]

idk

[@cirkulx]

as a console user, agreed

[@bobjonesisthebestastro]

people with taste

[@Ralphunreal]

its not beautiful, its just a black screen.

[@Justin-Hill-1987]

As technology has improved with each generation, each new iteration of that same technology has become a marked improvement over the old versions...

[@nathanielenochs1843]

Why do I feel like you have forgotten about the IBM 7090 series and its use of the speech synthesis program? 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵

[@teenagermax4482]

Idk but “pouring molasses in the arctic” is a crazy burn 💀

[@evanbalikos1878]

I feel bad for anyone who fast-forwarded for the ad break. Difficult, difficult, lemon-difficult is a fantastically stupid turn-of-phrase that made me belly laugh 🤣

[@DanielleWhite]

Loving the reference at 16:53.

[@brianpaul5667]

What about its tiny black and white screen give this a warm personality? Better off going with amiga os between 87 to 93 cause you get a multitasking os and dont take a step backwards by dumping color computing right after it became a thing. These old macs just make me feel bad for color blind people.

[@FightingTable]

My day has been made better already, thanks

[@3nsight]

“I’m Gill Bates, Chairman of Mike Row Soft, *gulps* and you’re going to see the past, Doors”

[@Super_dada06]

had never heard GUI as gooey

[@bradbaby]

Was that a sneaky In the Loop reference in the ad of all things?

[@Root__314]

It's interesting how users wanted a GUI, but now some people deliberately search out CLI OSs. I find Vim easier to use than notepad and nano, for instance. The keyboard is still a better and the primary input device of a computer in this form factor.

[@lv1543]

microsoft when MEGAHARD walks in

[@sabkafather]

Steve jobs didn't even know how to code

[@CommodoreFan64]

Truth, as in the early days Woz was the brains, and Steve was the slick showman till his death who only had a bit above a base understanding of how everything worked, and hired the talent to make it all happen, which was similar to Jack Tramiel of Commodore, only way more successful at it lol!

[@sabkafather]

@@CommodoreFan64 exactly .. his products rely on basic functionalities and pretty looks . that's it nothing more and nothing less

[@wasmadeinthe80s]

> says he’s Bill Gates > looks like Steve Jobs Nice try buddy

[@iwanttocomplain]

The original Mac had 128KB of ram. So Mac OS1 was probably less than 64KB resident in memory. That's kind of impressive. Reading the wiki, the Mac had a 64KB rom containing QuickDraw graphic libraries and api. Another interesting tidbit from the article is that the Mac project was stared by Jef Raskin who worked on it for two years before Jobs took over the project himself. Given that his Lisa project was not commercially viable.

[@ericakensho7780]

If Commodore hadn't dropped the ball with the Amiga, computing would be ten years more advanced than it is right now. In 1987, the Commodore Amiga could run circles around ANYTHING made by Apple or an IBM PC compatible with MS Windows junk. Heck, with a Bridgeboard card, you could run an entire 386 computer inside a single window on the Amiga.

[@Mercenary1996]

Who knew in 1986 that was a very very cheesy commercial but everybody's still bought the computer 😅

[@mordekai_wilde]

Nice In the Loop reference in your ad read 👀

[@darkgatheringwfb5759]

For anyone Tech savvy MS Dos did everything you needed and plus you didn't need to multi-task ... even for using media programs such as Photoshop (or Corel Draw) and Excel based progams were very limited in their usage at the time = before Windows 95, having a computer was basically having a over priced Word Processing machine with the ability to play games + Internet was still reduce using Dial Up speed, even us Tech Savvy weren't ready to jump on the internet just yet.

[@limethatphonecollector1289]

gill bates is crazy lol

[@keylanoslokj1806]

A greedy jabber misanthrope crazy? 😂