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My Favorite Operating System© Copyright Darrell Anderson. My favorite operating system? I don’t have one because every operating system has advantages and disadvantages, but the question provokes many memories. Somewhere around 1975 I used an old teletype keyboard to kerchunk my way to my first “Hello” program. My first experience with a desktop personal computer was in 1980 with a workmate’s TRS-80 and an amazing 4 kilobytes (KB) of memory. Playing Pong without going to the tavern was a treat! The first personal computer in which I worked productively was the Apple II. I used the computer as a word processor to write lesson plans and documentation. I’m still amazed we no longer had to buy white-out or erasable bond typing paper nor did we have to buy an IBM Selectric with an eraser ribbon. The first PC I owned was a Commodore 64 in 1983. I already was familiar with the Commodore name when that company introduced that computer and the Vic 20. My first hand-held calculator was a Commodore MM2SR that in 1975 cost approximately $200. That was not the first “hand-held” calculator I saw, however. My physics teacher had purchased a Heathkit calculator that was as big as a shoe box but nonetheless portable. After he finished soldering and assembling the parts he could add, subtract, multiply, and divide with the new device. Awesome, but only a year later my Commodore “pocket” calculator had memory, square, square root, and reciprocal functions! The Commodore 64 received its name because the box contained 64 KB of RAM! Monitors were yet but a dream. We connected our computers to the television using an A/B switch box. The first Commodore 64s came with cassette tape drives to store data. External floppy disk drives cost several hundred dollars. The 5¼ inch floppy disks contained a whopping 160 KB of single-sided storage. Then somebody figured out that with approximately half the floppy disks manufactured, the flip side was good for additional storage. Double-sided floppy disks! A hand-held hole puncher then became an indispensable part of the hobbyist’s tool kit. Does anyone remember Zork? I taught myself BASIC programming with the Commodore 64. I wrote a simulation program that required an incredible 20 KB of disk storage. Today, the meta-data alone in a typical blank document consumes more space. People think the current GNU/Linux distro wars are something unique, but computer wars were already old in the mid 1980s. Commodore, Atari, and Apple zealots shared many boasting contests. Then IBM entered the controversy. In 1984 I enrolled in a Pascal programming class using an IBM AT. There were some Commodore PETs in there too. Around 1986 or 1987 I bought the first pre-emptive multi-tasking personal computer—an Amiga 1000. Technology continued to improve and we used 3½ inch floppy disks to “kick start” the system. Later I bought an external 20 MB hard drive and case. With the Amiga 3000, I no longer needed the external hard drive or Kickstart floppy. I had both a Macintosh emulator and a PC Bridgeboard installed. Pound for pound, byte for byte, I think the original Amiga was the best computer around and the most fun too. The entire multi-tasking kernel was only 256 KB in size! Does anyone remember that red and white bouncing ball? Paula? Agnus? Denise? My hobbyist days gave way to using computers for a livelihood. In 1990 I bought my first laser printer for more than $1,700—an HP IIP. I used that printer for more than a decade and that printer still works, although relegated to the storage shelf almost two years ago. Professionally I had been using MS-DOS for a few years but in 1991 I bought a state-of-the-art 80486 computer with 16 MB of RAM. I became proficient at using one of the best little word processors created—WordPerfect. Later I installed Windows 3.1, then Symantec’s Norton Desktop for Windows, then Windows for Workgroups 3.11 (WFWG). I wrote dozens of Norton Desktop scripts. I downloaded software updates from computer bulletin boards using 4800 baud modems. When Microsoft Office became available I installed the entire suite by hand, using 19 3½ inch floppy disks. All of this fit conveniently into a 512 MB hard drive! Sometime in the mid 1990s I used that computer, along with a 14.4 KB modem, to access the world wide web. I had a CompuServe account. Later I swapped the CPU for a Cyrix 90 MHz Pentium clone. I still own that computer and last year hauled the box from the shelf to tinker with configuring an internet gateway and router using various GNU/Linux distros. That old 14.4 KB modem still works too. In the mid nineties my next box was a state-of-the-art Pentium MMX, with 32 MB of RAM, sound card, CD drive, and a huge 3.2 GB hard drive. I had NT4 Workstation installed. I networked with my 486 box. Microsoft Office 97 came on CD! I still use that box, having since updated the CPU to a screaming K6-III+, adding a silent Seagate 40 GB, and packing in 256 MB of RAM. I still use NT4, having long ago stripped from the system the Achilles’ heal of Windows: Internet Explorer and Outlook. I also have 25 partitions on my hard drive, one of which is a copy of my original DOS/WFWG 3.11 configuration. I tinker as much as I can with several GNU/Linux distros hoping to someday migrate permanently. I use the computer today primarily as a tool. Favorite operating system? Nope, fanfare and hoopla is old hat. Been there, done that. I don’t even think computers are the most amazing calculating tool invented. In 1973 I scrounged $7.95 to officially enter geekdom when I bought an all-metal Pickett slide rule, model no. N1010-ES, serial no. A1417274, with 17 scales and leather carrying case. Mastering a computer requires time and skill, but mastering a slide rule was art! I was hardly ever so proud as when I walked the halls of school, with my leather carrying case tucked under my wrist as I walked from class to class. The power of the desktop computer is nothing compared to the rush one had from being able to manipulate a slide rule to the precision of three decimal places. Geekdom hasn’t changed over the decades either. When I purchased that slide rule I knew I was never going to date any of the cheerleaders! Finis. |
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