- Operating Systems Basics
- Operating System (OS) Home
- Operating System Basics
- What is an Operating System
- History of Operating System
- Mainframe Operating System
- Server Operating System
- Multiprocessor Operating System
- Personal Computer OS
- Real-Time Operating System
- Embedded Operating System
- Smart Card Operating System
- OS Processors
- OS Memory
- OS System Calls
- Operating System Structure
- OS Processes and Threads
- OS Processes
- OS Process Model
- OS Process Creation
- OS Process Termination
- OS Process Hierarchies
- OS Process States
- OS Process Implementation
- OS Threads
- OS Thread Model
- OS Thread Implementation
- OS Pop-up Threads
- OS Interprocess Communication
- OS Scheduling
- OS Thread Scheduling
- OS Deadlocks
- OS Deadlocks
- OS Deadlock Resources
- OS Deadlock Conditions
- OS Deadlock Modelling
- OS Deadlock Detection
- OS Deadlock Recovery
- OS Deadlock Avoidance
- OS Deadlock Prevention
- OS Two-Phase Locking
- OS Memory Management
- OS Memory Management
- OS Monoprogramming
- OS Multiprogramming
- OS Relocation and Protection
- Memory Management with Bitmap
- Memory Management with Linked List
- OS Virtual Memory
- OS Page Replacement Algorithms
- OS Local vs Global Allocation Policie
- OS Load Control
- OS Page Size
- OS Separate Instruction & Data Space
- OS Shared Pages
- OS Cleaning Policies
- OS Virtual Memory Interface
- OS Implementation Issues
- OS Involvement with Paging
- OS Page Fault Handling
- OS Instruction Backup
- OS Locking Pages in Memory
- OS Backing Store
- OS Separation of Policy & Mechanism
- OS Segmentation
- Operating System Input/Output
- Operating System Input/Output
- OS Input/Output Devices
- OS Device Controllers
- OS Memory-Mapped Input/Output
- OS Direct Memory Access DMA
- OS Input/Output Software Goals
- OS Programmed Input/Output
- OS Interrupt-Driven Input/Output
- OS Input/Output using DMA
- OS Input/Output Software Layers
- OS Disks
- OS Disk Hardware
- OS Disk Formatting
- OS Stable Storage
- OS Clocks
- OS Character-Oriented Terminals
- OS RS-232 Terminal Hardware
- OS Graphical User Interfaces
- OS Network Terminals
- OS Power Management
- OS File Systems
- OS Files
- OS File Naming
- OS File Structure
- OS File Types
- OS File Access
- OS File Attributes
- OS File Operations
- OS Memory-Mapped Files
- OS Directories
- OS Single-Level Directory System
- OS Two-Level Directory System
- OS Hierarchical Directory System
- OS Path Names
- OS Directory Operations
- OS File System Implementation
- OS File System Layout
- OS Disk Space Management
- Multimedia Operating System
- Multimedia Operating System
- OS Multimedia Files
- OS Audio Encoding
- OS Video Encoding
- OS Video Compression
- OS Multimedia Process Scheduling
- OS Multimedia File System Paradigm
- OS File Placement
- OS Caching
- OS Disk Scheduling
- OS Multiple Processor System
- OS Multiprocessors
- OS Multiprocessor Hardware
- OS Multiprocessor Synchronization
- OS Multiprocessor Scheduling
- OS Multicomputers
- OS Multicomputer Hardware
- Low-Level Communication Software
- User-Level Communication Software
- OS Remote Procedure Call
- OS Distributed Shared Memory
- OS Multicomputer Scheduling
- OS Load Balancing
- OS Distributed System
- OS Network Hardware
- OS Network Services and Protocols
- OS Document-Based Middleware
- OS File System-Based Middleware
- OS Shared Object-Based Middleware
- Operating System Security
- Operating System Security
- OS Threats
- OS Intruders
- OS Accidental Data Loss
- Basics of Cryptography
- Secret-Key Cryptography
- Public-Key Cryptography
- OS Digital Signatures
- OS User Authentication
- OS Trojan Horses
- OS Login Spoofing
- OS Logic Bombs
- OS Trap Doors
- OS Viruses
- OS AntiViruses
- OS Internet Worms
- Give Online Test
- All Test List
- Operating System Test
History of Operating System
In this tutorial of history of operating system, we will take a look at the successive generations of computers to see what their operating systems were like.
In the year from 1792 to 1871, an English Mathematician named Charles Babbage, designed the first true digital computer.
Charles Babbage spent most of his life in building his analytical engine, but he never got it working properly only because it was purely mechanical or you can say an operating system was not installed in that analytical engine.
Then after sometime, Charles Babbage realised that he would need a software for that analytical engine. Therefore he hired a programmer named Ada Lovelace (the first programmer of the world).
Later, Ada is a programming language named on her.
First Generation Computers
Here you will learn about the first generation (1945-1955) computers, Vacuum Tubes and Plugboards.
After the unsuccessful efforts of Charles Babbage, there was made some little progress in constructing the digital computers.
Around the mid 1940s, there were different programmers and scientists named Howard Aiken, John Von Neumann, J. Presper Eckert, William Mauchley and Knorad Zuse at/in Harward, Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, University of Pennsylvania Germany. All succeeded in building the calculating engines.
At that time, the first ones used mechanical relays but they were very slow with cycle times measured in seconds. Vacuum Tubes later replaced that relays. These machines were enormous, filling up the entire or whole rooms with just tens of thousands of Vacuum Tubes. And for your information, they were still millions of times slower than the cheapest personal computers (PCs) available today.
At that time, all the programming was done just in absolute machine language, often by wiring up plugboards to control the basic functions of the machine. Because in those days, programming language were not known to all the computer scientists, even assembly language was also not known. And no any computer scientists heard about operating system in those days.
In those days, sometime Vacuum Tubes burns during the run of few more hours than usual. In short, there were a lot of problems occurred during the calculation using the first generation computers.
Second Generation Computers
Here you will learn about the second generation (1955-1965) computers, Transistors and Batch Systems.
In the mid 1950s, the introduction of transistor changed the view of computers.
After the introduction of transistor on those days, computers became reliable and they could be manufactured for sold to paying customers with the expectation that they could continue to function long enough to get some required and useful work done by those computers.
These machines, later called Mainframes, that were locked away in a specially AC (Air Conditioned) computers rooms, with staff of professional operators to run that computer.
In those days, no one can afford those high cost computers except big corporations or major government agencies or universities.
To run any job or program on those computer, a programmer would first write the program on a paper (FORTRAN or assembler), then punch it on the cards. He would then bring the card deck down to the input room and then hand it to one of the operators and leave the computer for sometime until the required output was ready.
Those second generation computers were used mostly for the scientific and engineering calculations. They were programmed in FORTRAN and assembly language.
In those days, operating systems were FMS (stands for FORTRAN Monitor System), and IBSYS, operating system of IBM for the 7094.
Third Generation Computers
Here you will learn about the third generation (1965-1980) computers, ICs and Multiprogramming.
The third generation operating systems produced by some computer manufacturers satisfied most of their customers. Those computer manufacturers also popularized several important techniques, the main was multiprogramming.
On the 7094, when the current job paused to wait for a tape or any other Input/Output operation to done or complete, the CPU (Central Processing Unit) sat idle until the Input/Output finished. Now with heavily CPU-bound scientific calculations, then the Input/Output operations becomes infrequent.
Therefore this just wasted the time only, which was not significant. And now with commercial data processing, the Input/Output operation wait time can often be 80-90 percent of the total time.
Therefore to avoid having the CPU (Central Processing Unit) be idle so much, something must had to be done.
The solution that evolved the above problem was just to partition the memory into some several pieces, with a different work in each partition. While one work was waiting for the Input/Output to complete, another work could be using the Central Processing Unit.
The third generation operating systems were well suited for the big-scientific calculations and massive commercial data processing runs, but they were still basically batch systems.
Fourth Generation Computers
Here you will learn about the fourth generation (1980 - Present) Personal Computers (PCs).
Chips containing thousands of transistors on a square centimeter of silicon, just with the development of Large Scale Integration (LSI). The age of personal computer dawned.
Personal Computers (PCs) initially called as microcomputers.
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