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Timeline in Pictures from 1983: Unix/Linux, Apple, Windows GUI evolution!

findsecrets.blogspot.com — A great time line in pictures showing the evolution of Operating Systems and their graphics. The first commercial OS GUI was in 1983 by Apple. Unix and Windows joined later. Some great screen shots that are a joy to view over and over again. KDE joined later in 1998 and Gnome in 1999. The two are developing fast, particularly KDE.

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  • taotehue, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15dugg, but it misses looking glass.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMWd1FOgr18
    • coredump0x01, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17Also missing Beryl : /
    • schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -19/+7I wish they had shown Linux in its earlier day. It demonstrates that Open Source makes progress /far/ faster than proprietary software. That's one of its powers and the reasons it will ultimately win.


      Here's KDE when XP was released:

      http://kde.org/screenshots/kde2shots.php (KDE 2.x, 2001)

      Here's Linux (KDE) today:

      http://kde.org/screenshots/kde350shots.php (KDE 3.x)


      But XGL is fun too...

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUSn-jBA3CE

      http://youtube.com/watch?v=lawkc3jH3ws


      For comparison, here's proof that Vista is just XP in a new 'gown':

      http://schestowitz.com/IMG/blog/windows-ajax.jpg (XP 2001)

      http://schestowitz.com/IMG/blog/longhorn_beta.jpg (Longhorn 2005)
    • rhesuspieces00, on 10/12/2007, -9/+17@schestowitz

      "It demonstrates that Open Source makes progress /far/ faster than proprietary software."

      I don't really agree. It shows that OSS catches up faster than proprietary software. All the XGL eyecandy on those youtube videos is just exageration of effects used in OS X for the past 3 years. Its impressive to see how far Linux has come, and I am glad it is doing well since competition stimulates innovation and ultimately benefits the consumers no matter what system they use, but there is a big difference between designing a feature and copying a feature.

      I'm trying to think of truly ground breaking developments from the past 5 years that originated with the OSS community. BitTorrent stands out in my mind, which was mostly the work of one semi-autistic prodigy. I can't think of much else.
    • latova, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20Firefox, made IE run for the hills, and thats open source. Apache, the most popular server software currently, is open source, and giving microsoft some major headaches. PHP, a very popular scripting language, is open source. Those are the two large ones that I can think of off the top of my head, theres also a bunch of smaller open source softwares like gaim, open office, phpbb, and so on, but those aren't as popular. Open source is definately making a movement. I've become a huge supporter of it in the past few months after I experienced what it has to offer.
    • rhesuspieces00, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8im not asking are there any popular or successful or "good" opensource projects. which ones are innovative? as in a completely new concept, not a replica of a closed source product with some features added.

      i guess firefox took extensibility to a new level, but thats kind of borderline. browsers have had extensions since the early 90s. its still just a browser. i love adium, which is heavily dependent on gaim, but its still just a better version of trillian, which is just a bunch of other things stuck together in one app.

      creating a free version of every useful piece of software is a noble cause; I would just like to see some of those resources directed towards something that hasn't been done already.
    • Noctem, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11@ schestowitz:
      "For comparison, here's proof that Vista is just XP in a new 'gown':"

      Two extremely small, pixelated jpeg images offers _proof_ of your claim? Interesting. Nice try, but no cigar.

      If you want proof (Yes, actual proof, not grainy jpegs) that Vista is a pretty large evolutionary (not revolutionary, like OS X was over OS 9) step in the Windows chain, read through this rather extensive list at Wikipedia:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista
    • shakin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"I'm trying to think of truly ground breaking developments from the past 5 years that originated with the OSS community."

      KIO (aka kioslaves) are an innovative way to bridge the gap between local files and files across a network. It's much more than network folders because KIO's pluggable architecture allows support for any number of protocols. A computer accessible only by SSH is available in exactly the same way that a Windows or NFS shared drive is. WebDav, FTP, SSH, SMB, and local become the same thing as far as a user in concerned. Programs can use them all in exactly the same way.

      KIO is a bit technical, but the concept is a huge gain for end users.

      I'd also argue that centralized software repositories are a great innovation. They provide a way to update all software on your system automatically. You never need to hunt for the latest driver or service pack because your computer alerts you when they're available and then downloads and installs them automatically.
    • Noctem, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4@shakin:
      "I'd also argue that centralized software repositories are a great innovation. They provide a way to update all software on your system automatically. You never need to hunt for the latest driver or service pack because your computer alerts you when they're available and then downloads and installs them automatically."

      Centralized repositories are neither 1. great, nor 2. innovative. While they can be a step in the right direction, you are often at the mercy of the maintainers of the repository. Software is often not up to date. There are also no 'service packs' in these repositories (There are no service packs at all in Linux, per se. And there are usually no proprietary drivers in the default repositories for most distros).

      Microsoft Update already provides these services (Proprietary driver updates, service packs, Office patches, etc), and has for a long time (Windows Update was working in Win98). And most software these days comes with a feature to automatically check for new versions - You just have to go to the website yourself and download it.
    • triplep, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Noctem,

      Repos have tons of security patches added all of the time, along with new versions, for many different applications, and while I agree that they aren't always the fastest to be updated, you can't really compare it to the MS cycle, cause nobody knows what's going on with regard to their release cycle. You don't know of the existence of an update before MS tells you it's available. Best of all, rebooting is for adding new hardware, not new software.
    • Derrekito, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1What happened with Looking glass? There seems to be an open source page by sun but... how how it isn't popular....
    • raindogmx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'm not a Mac fanboy but I can see in the screenshots that Mac always seems to be ahead of everyone.
    • ibis, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1"I'm trying to think of truly ground breaking developments from the past 5 years that originated with the OSS community."

      Bittorrent.

      Changed the face of the internet and is changing the face of the music, movie and TV industries. Open source. Pwned.
    • nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2unix, linux, xen, ruby, python, ruby on rails, perl, subversion, many multi-protocol IM clients. these have all made differences, in the last 5 years or not.

      i love seeing next in 1988 beside win 3.11 from 1993. hilarious that next wasn't more popular.
    • rhesuspieces00, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@ibis

      If you actually read the discussion, you would notice the quote was:

      "I'm trying to think of truly ground breaking developments from the past 5 years that originated with the OSS community. BitTorrent stands out in my mind, which was mostly the work of one semi-autistic prodigy. I can't think of much else."

      pwned yourself.
  • rhesuspieces00, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16AmigaOS 3.1 Workbench (circa 1993?)
    http://os.amigaworld.de/images/os31picture.jpg

    BeOS (circa 1996)
    http://www.beatjapan.org/mirror/www.be.com/products/beos/resources/beos_release4.gif

    • trylleklovn, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3First screenshot reminds me of the "Scorch"-game.
    • dubbreak, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1How about:
      CDE on solaris and openvms, AIX etc ('94?):
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Desktop_Environment

      or Java desktop on solaris:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_Operating_Environment

      Oh, and NeXTstep isn't apple's, or at least not originally when it wasn't in '89 (it was bought in 1997 from NeXT computers, you know, when Steve Jobs came back to Apple). Also to note: Apple was considering buying BeOS to base their new os off of (osx), but there were pricing issues (ended up paying more for NeXTstep iirc though).



    • streetstealth, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Ah, Workbench brings back memories.

      Fun Amiga fact: The reason all those icons and window controls look so weird and squished is that they were all designed for a non-interlaced, half-VGA screen resolution. While we generally think of there being no steps between 320x240 and 640x480, the Amiga Workbench defaulted to a strange ~640x240 resolution (the res was a bit higher with overscan) with "tall pixels."

      Evenutally, people started replacing the icons and hacking the window renderers and ended up with more OS2-like stuff like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:AmigaOS_3_9_Workbench.jpg
    • cbreaker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yea, or any Amiga OS version, because they were all GUI. This isn't a very good time-line at all, particularly because they missed too many key moments. I mean, what about OS/2 1.x? About about adding one of them fancy XGL desktop screens? Vista is in there, and it's not even available yet.

      Plus, it's not even accurate on the items it does show.

      No digg, lame.
  • cmfrolick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12A more complete timeline, unfortunately stops at 2004.

    http://toastytech.com/guis/guitimeline.html

    But it does include PARC UI, the one Apple OS and Windows are based on.
  • jakobrowning, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11was it just me, or did anyone notice that they showed Mac OS9 and called it OSX?
    • eurleif, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9That's Mac OS X Server 1.0 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Server_1.0 ). It was based on NeXTStep like later versions of OS X, but lacked the Aqua GUI.
    • chrislund, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6yeah i think a lot is probably off with those screenshots/captions. he has a screenshot of system 7 representing "1987 - apple mac ii." besides the fact that "apple macintosh ii" wasn't the name of any os, system 7 wasn't released until '91 or something.
    • lunarworks, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21That was the "not ready for the public" developer release of OSX.

      But the guy's a moron. NeXTStep was NOT an Apple OS. I guess he didn't do any research at all.
    • jakobrowning, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@eurleif

      thanks for clearing that up, I'll be the first to admit I'm not as familiar with Macs as I'd like to be.
    • jrapp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Agreed. I believe that's OS 9. Also, the "1987 - Apple Macintosh II" screen shot is of OS 8(?).
    • xinetd, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0That is Mac OS X Server v. 1.x. It was the first Apple-shipped NeXT-based OS, using the Mac OS 8.x GUI with the UNIX underpinnings from NeXT.
    • Kyderdog, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3But the guy's a moron. NeXTStep was NOT an Apple OS. I guess he didn't do any research at all.

      Yes it is... Apple Owns NeXTStep so it is NOW a Apple OS...
    • lunarworks, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Kyderdog: Yes it is... Apple Owns NeXTStep so it is NOW a Apple OS...

      Note that I said "was", not "is", and that he marked the screenshot with a date implying *historical* information.
  • colincornaby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17The article is rife with errors. Macintosh II is not an OS. Apple did not make NeXTStep. And so on...
    • masterofNone, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8'zactly. and they show OS 9 as the first incarnation of OS X. at least as far as Mac OS id concerned... this article is BS.
    • fakesman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Not to mention the omission of Lisa OS.

      @masterofnone: that actually is OS X "Server" 1.0 in the first screenshot. The Rhapsody developer preview had some weird OS 9ness to it--not enough for Mac users at the time. When I got to try it I objected to the NeXTness of the UI, thinking they had just slapped a superficial Mac face on an alien interface. Back then Mac users had no idea how much better than alien interface really was.
  • dohidied, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Wow, looking at the OS choices from 1987 it's no wonder that graphic designers all bought Macs.
  • Iffrat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4wow talk about making me feel old..

    i was born in 84 .. but i remember using almost all of them..
  • mdshoreboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3these photos and descriptions of the early systems are WRONG! Apple didn't have color icons until System 6. It didn't include color in the widgets until system 7.5.

    Plus, was there ever a shipping Windows 2.0?
    • DelMonte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1" Apple didn't have color icons until System 6."

      Wrong, and misleading.

      Apple didn't have color icons IN THE FINDER until System 7... (but you could colorize Finder icons using the label menu on color Macs on pre-System 7, and the 32-Quickdraw icon was in 256 color in the Finder, thanks to a hack/easter-egg)

      But despite not having color icons in the Finder until System 7, there was color icons in applications outside the Finder since the 1987 Mac II system release, these were possible and used for example by system dialog boxes.
  • yoasif, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10This ought to be buried as inaccurate.
    • mastershake1, on 10/12/2007, -19/+1So should your comment. Seriously, if you don't like it, just bury it. People don't give two craps about your opinion. STFU and GBTW.
    • yoasif, on 10/12/2007, -8/+5By that logic, your comment should be buried as well. Why don't you STFU? :)
  • hisjap2003, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12don't you just hate it when there's a thumbnail in an article that's clickable, but it turns out that the thumbnail only takes you to a picture that's the same size or only a little bigger than the thumbnail itself?
  • Neiby, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5"That's one of its powers and the reasons it will ultimately win."

    Linux will never win until Joe/Jane Consumer can be sure that their hardware is going to be supported. I don't think any flavor of linux offers any where near the device support that XP does, for example. Gaming is another reason why linux will never catch on, at least in the near future. Let me know when Far Cry 2 or Crysis are available on linux. Then I'll switch.
  • jx2ang, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Not a Windoz fan, but they also forgot Win 98.
    • socalrob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5They left out :

      Windows 98
      Windows ME
      Windows 2000 (and server 2003 if you want to get technical)

      They were probably going for big changes, as between windows 3.1 and 95 then nothing changed much until xp and then vista somewhat.... But at least it was a trip down memory lane. I've never seen a screen of windows 1.0, and now I have :)
    • djchester, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3was writing ME and 2000 but socalrob beat me to it. :)
    • Iffrat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3ME was a real OS!! ??

      could have fooled me... still to this day have i had one of those systems to work. talk about a IT nightmare
  • Protoman, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Wow, the first linux OS looks exactly like the ones I see today. Someone needs to get a gfx update.
  • beggersfunk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3No digg,incomplete!
  • HarleyQuinn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Missing GEOS that ran on a Commodore 64.
  • UltimaNut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Worst list ever.

  • dAbReAkA, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2oh no, not again..
  • Niro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Sorry but it's kinda old ....
  • dr-steve, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Yes, weak. Left out Win 98, 2000, NT 3.5, NT4.0, Xerox Altos (the GUI Apple ripped off) (yes, the Altos was sold, just not well, I saw these back in '77), GEM, various X window managers (TWM, MWM, etc.). And don't forget Sun (I saw my first Sun as a prototype -- a couple of circuit boards connected to a keyboard and monitor, complete with GUI, back in 1980). And DesqView, a Win 1.0-2.0-3.0 competitor that Quarterdeck produced in the mid to late 80s.
    • DelMonte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"the GUI Apple ripped off"

      Whatever... same old drivel... read some computer history... While Apple was heavily inspired by Xerox, and actually paid them for what they saw, both Apple and Xerox pioneered many GUI ideas concurently, and many people working on the Mac (Raskin, Atkinson) were pioneers in GUI work and made thesis about it years before Xerox even thought about making a GUI OS. Menu Bars, and scroll-bars as we know them today, as well as drag-and-drop manipulation of files using a desktop metaphor were Apple-firsts, even Xerox adopted some of these in later versions of their OS. As they say, there was a lot of "cross-polenization" from both sides.

      On the other hand, Microsoft first created Windows as a way to port their GUI versions of Word, Excel etc. to x86 (that were first created and released on Macs), using their privileged access to the development versions of the Mac to literally reverse-engineering the inner-workings of the Mac APIs so that ports of Word and Excel were easier to pull off.
  • Haplo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It misses Arthur and RISC OS, sadly. Any GUI overview missing both is incomplete:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC_OS

    "One unusual and innovative feature of the operating system at the time of its release was its support for high-quality, hinted and anti-aliased outline font rendering, a feature that only became widespread in other operating systems much later."

    yup, we're talking 1989 here (although I am almost sure that Arthur had AA font rendering as well, but not as good as RISC OS).
  • techweenie1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That just scratches the surface...very incomplete
  • groggyboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Inaccuracies aside, isn't anyone else impressed how Apple had a working "modern" interface all the way back in 2000 with aqua? Look at that picture: there is true transparency there. Linux couldn't compete with that until XGL/Compiz arrived in 2005ish, and Microsoft has yet to release something as modern looking (although I suppose Vista will level the playing field somewhat). I'm a proud linux user, but that won't stop me from congratulating Apple for their highly impressive achievement.
  • astrotrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Left out are the great GEOS for the C=64, Amiga's Workbench, AIX's CDE are
    a few.


    • Thuktun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1CDE wasn't just on AIX, it was also on SunOS and HP/UX, among others. Motif is also conspicuously absent.
  • bemaniac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Um... no. The first picture of OSX was actually OS 9 which was NOT based on UNIX. They also missed all of the evolutions of Mac OS all the way from 1987 to the late 90's.
    • mipadi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's actually either Mac OS X Server 1.0, or Rhapsody (an early version of what became OS X). Likely it's OS X Server 1.0, since that was released in 1999.
    • combatchuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Having used that OS, I can confirm for you that the picture you're thinking is OS9 is, in fact OS X. Of course, back then, it was called "Mac OS X Server" or "Rhapsody". It was essentially a repackage of NeXTSTEP 4, with a different graphic subsystem. Take a close look at the app switcher menu in that screen shot, and see that it says "Workspace Manager". That release could hardly be called an OS, however. It came out even before Mac OSX DP1 came out.
    • DelMonte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Even if it was actually "Mac OS X Server 1.0", it's misleading to label this as simply "Mac OS X" since Aqua was already announced at that point.
  • TechZone, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This guide is missing Xerox's STAR OS, which is the first commercially available GUI-based Operating System. The story is that Xerox showed their product (released) to Apple, who copied the idea, who showed it to Microsoft, starting the copying chain (this is just the story...I don't know if it is true, nor is it possible to determine)

    Just wanted to let you guys know :)
    • DelMonte, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1You should read a book about computer history, it's certainly much more complicated than what you explained.
    • TechZone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Actually, I just made a digressed comment about it. I have no intentions of telling everybody the full history of the computer, OS and GUI because I dont have time to type it at the moment. Maybe later.
  • rabiddogma, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2That just reminded me that Windows has always looked like *****.
  • LilRabbitFooFoo, on 08/11/2008, -0/+1How could this idiot miss the AMIGA? For crying out loud.
  • diggPhile82, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1not again. Have we not seen enough of these 'memory lane' tributes?

    marked: tired
  • michaelg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This deserves to be dugg down as inaccurate because it is missing so many important images and incorrectly labels some. The NeXTStep operating system wasn't Apple's but instead from NeXT computers which Steve Jobs went on to form after he was ousted from Apple. A quick little Wikipedia search will show that it was actually released in 1989 not 1988. He also shows Kubuntu in 2006, like it is the hotbed of all KDE development, and as though there were no intermediary steps in between.
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