What is Digg?Sponsored by Threadless
$9 t-shirts today only view!
threadless.com - Today's the day to snag a deal on t-shirts! Threadless.com. $9. Every. Single. Tee.
48 Comments
- BobDle, on 09/21/2009, -1/+341: The development of COBOL (1959)
2: The development of the ARPANET (1969)
3: The creation of UNIX (1970)
4: The first “clamshell” laptop (1979)
5: The beginning of Linus Torvalds’ work on Linux (1991)
6: The advent of Windows 95 (1995)
7: The 90s dot-com bubble (1990s)
8: Steve Jobs rejoining Apple (1996)
9: The creation of Napster (1999)
10: The start of Wikipedia (2000) - YourPal, on 09/21/2009, -1/+1909 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
- rameznabel, on 09/21/2009, -1/+18buried for not mentioning the create of C as one of the 10
- anonymousmedic, on 09/21/2009, -4/+202000 - the year of the linux desktop...err no, maybe:
2001 - the year of the linux desktop...err no, maybe:
2002 - the year of the linux desktop...err no, maybe:
2003 - the year of the linux desktop...err no, maybe:
2004 - the year of the linux desktop...err no, maybe:
2005 - the year of the linux desktop...err no, maybe:
2006 - the year of the linux desktop...err no, maybe:
2007 - the year of the linux desktop...err no, maybe:
2008 - the year of the linux desktop...err no, maybe:
2009 - the year of the linux desktop...err no, maybe:
201, aww ***** it. - jrm125, on 09/21/2009, -2/+1611. AverageDigger gets laid.
- DouglasQ, on 09/21/2009, -0/+1211: Singularity
12: N/A - 471776, on 09/21/2009, -0/+11People who aren't blinded by irrational hatred? Regardless of how you feel about it, Windows utterly outranks all other operating systems in terms of distribution. Windows has been the dominant OS since computers went mainstream and for many people has become synonymous with computers. You might not like it, but you cannot deny its impact.
- mkukreja, on 09/21/2009, -4/+11This article is not accurate at all. They are missing most important moments.
- platypusjh, on 09/22/2009, -0/+7A glaring omission: Microprocessors!!!!
The list seems to be light on hardware: General purpose microprocessors, integrated circuits, transistors, tube switches ("electronic valves"), dynamic RAM, etc. IMHO the microprocessor represents a bigger IT moment than any of the others on the list. - Lodovik, on 09/22/2009, -0/+7Remove Jobs return and replace it by the birth of the Macintosh
Find a place for the launch of the IBM PC (remove the clamshell laptop, maybe)
Remove Napster and replace it by Google
Wikipedia has no place on this list; eBay should replace it - Hellicus, on 09/21/2009, -0/+6(TBA)
- merlin5, on 09/22/2009, -1/+7This list misses by miles.
- supersonicjim, on 09/21/2009, -1/+7I would have put Tim Berners-Lee inventing the web, as in web sites on that list.
- WarAgainstUsAll, on 09/21/2009, -0/+5He certainly doesn't mean *best* operating system. However, compare how many people are using computers in their daily lives today vs. how many before Windows 9x came along. There is no doubt that Windows, warts and all, can be considered "important".
- thinking2loud, on 09/21/2009, -0/+5The 'MIT / AT&T' collaboration was a system called MULTICS. Yeah, it was a predecessor of Unix, but it wasn't Unix.
- freezo1994, on 09/22/2009, -1/+5long live Wikipedia, i have no clue how i would have survived without you
- anonymousmedic, on 09/21/2009, -1/+5Commence your nerdrage!
- Hellicus, on 09/21/2009, -4/+8Steve jobs, seriously ?
- rxbudian, on 09/22/2009, -0/+4How about the first calculator? First OS? First Office products such as Word Processor and Spreadsheet?
Technically if Win95 is the biggest moments, shouldn't OS2 or the Macintosh be in the list? - ldavid, on 09/22/2009, -0/+3Too true. I owe my under-graduate bachelors to Wikipedia.
- digitalpencil, on 09/21/2009, -0/+3it's certainly the most pervasive.. and hell, it's not even a bad OS. it's had its troubles in the past but at least they're headed in the right direction now.
- asskicker32, on 09/21/2009, -1/+4He lists Windows 95 as the first operating system to use a tool bar, recycle bin et al, yet he conveniently forgets about macOS.
Then he says that without Jobs, the ipod would have never happened and Apple would cease to exist because there is no ipod. Apple would still be around. The would, however, likely not have something like OSX. - IronDonut, on 09/21/2009, -0/+3The relational database and SQL would rank above... all of those except ARPANET which would have to rank equal.
- fastoy, on 09/22/2009, -0/+21967 - CP67 created by IBM. This was the beginning of virtualization as we know it.
- esc27, on 09/22/2009, -0/+2So many things could be added to a list like this.
The invention of the mouse
The invention of the GUI
The invention of the transistor
etc. - Persnickety, on 09/22/2009, -0/+2IT pre-dates computers. How about
Godel proves incompleteness theorem (1931)
It shapes computing today more than just about anything on the list. - brundlefly76, on 09/22/2009, -0/+21989: Invention of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee
Its simple elegance, longevity,extensibility, and power have never ceased to amaze me more than any other invention, not to mention how serendipitous the timing of its creation was.
It boots Napster to the curb at the very least. - Kriegg, on 09/22/2009, -0/+2Screw all these, the #1 item is AOL going unlimited!!!!! LOL! jk.
- graemee, on 09/22/2009, -0/+1The floppy
The modem - saranagati, on 09/21/2009, -0/+1although windows is most commonly used, windows (or dos to be more accurate) was the first operating system to be distributed on common desktop computers (escapes me for some reason whether they were called micro computers or mini or whatever). The operating system itself didn't provide any ground breaking development of the evolution of computers (although maybe some will claim MS delayed the evolution). MS just happened to have got the IBM contract to distribute it's operating system on the new computers that would be released to everyone. This is perhaps the biggest moment that the article left out... the invention of personal computers. The UNIX operating system was a big deal because it was the first to allow a computer to virtually do multiple things at once.
Edit: If it wasn't microsoft, someone else would have got the contract. Maybe they wouldn't have kept a clench on the market like microsoft did, but it didn't pave the way for anything. Software already had the ability to be installed on multiple computers without having to have the code rewritten (thanks to c and unix). - saranagati, on 09/22/2009, -0/+1it's your post that isn't true at all. it was ibm who decided to use open hardware architecture of the x86 processor. This allowed any software firm to design software that would work on any desktop pc made by IBM or an IBM clone that ran dos (not all dos was microsoft branded). As I said before, the ability to create software that ran on more than just one single machine was invented 20 years prior with unix/c. By 1981 that was common practice, what wasn't common practice until then though was allowing multiple vendors to create identical machines that ran the same set of processes.
- nepidae, on 09/22/2009, -0/+1Hello IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again?
- MarkyBear, on 09/22/2009, -1/+2@digginamish: Sorry to halt your Microsoft fanboyism, but it's not about invention, it's about popularization. Apple popularized its GUI and use of a mouse (which Jobs saw at Xerox Parc who were not interested in marketing it), so MS copied it. If Apple wasn't around, Windows would have come along many years later than it did. Time and time again Microsoft has looked at what other companies have done to be successful and then done their best to copy it:
Wordperfect - Word
Lotus 123 - Excel
Novell Netware - MS LAN Manager
Quicken - Money
Netscape - Explorer
Playstation - X-Box
iPod - Zune
Google - Bing
Need I go on? I can't think of a single product that Microsoft has pioneered. Their major accomplishment was getting on the IBM PC and charging per copy of the OS. The rest was momentum. - digginamish, on 09/23/2009, -0/+1Thank you Marky and mrBitch for reiterating my point; your list did not include a single "inventor" - they are all copies of previously existing products that BECAME the more popular product and eclipsed the original! It didn't sound like you were trying to back me up, but I appreciate the gesture. I hope you appreciate mine :)
Wordperfect did not invent word processing, Netscape was not the first browser, Google was not the first search engine: they all popularized existing technology as Windows did for the tools that Xerox invented.
Contrary to your assertion I'm not a fanboy, but a realist. Wake up and smell the latte. - mrBitch, on 09/22/2009, -1/+2@ MarkyBear, RE: " @digginamish: Sorry to halt your Microsoft fanboyism, but it's not about invention, it's about popularization. Apple popularized its GUI and use of a mouse (which Jobs saw at Xerox Parc who were not interested in marketing it), so MS copied it.
If Apple wasn't around, Windows would have come along many years later than it did. Time and time again Microsoft has looked at what other companies have done to be successful and then done their best to copy it:
Wordperfect - Word
Lotus 123 - Excel
Novell Netware - MS LAN Manager
Quicken - Money
Netscape - Explorer
Playstation - X-Box
iPod - Zune
Google - Bing
Need I go on? I can't think of a single product that Microsoft has pioneered. Their major accomplishment was getting on the IBM PC and charging per copy of the OS. The rest was momentum."
All good points. - EricDraven, on 09/22/2009, -0/+1And the name Unix was a pun by Brian Kernighan when he observed Ken Thompson in the basement working alone on the multiuser Multics machine, that he commented it was a "Uni-processing Multics" server, thus, "Unix". Which also signifies that Unix is not really an acronym for anything, and thus is also accepted to be written as "Unix" (as opposed to the trademarked "UNIX").
- mrBitch, on 09/22/2009, -0/+1@ brundlefly76, RE: " 1989: Invention of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee"
Good point. Also of interest is how quickly the first web server and web browser were coded by Tim, due to the fact that Tim was using a computer and OS that was years ahead of its time :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:First_Web_Server ...
" .. Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web using this Next computer as the first Web server." - ldavid, on 09/22/2009, -2/+2Completely agree. One of the 10 biggest moments in IT History? Absolutely not.
- BetaUser, on 09/22/2009, -1/+1Not true at all. It was Microsoft (rather Gates and Allen) who saw the potential of software driving hardware. Up until that time, the average consumer just didn't see software as having any value outside of the hardware it was installed on. Microsoft changed that for the most part so that it even took the crown from then King of the hill Tandy.
- GregR, on 09/21/2009, -3/+3If you are going to put any version of Windows on there then you need the Mac or at least its OS on the list. Without that Windows would not exist today - at least not like it is now.
- digginamish, on 09/22/2009, -1/+1Just as you conveniently forget that Apple didn't invent those iconic tools either.
If you read a little more you'll find that he's talking about the massive distribution that Windows has achieved; the line "the metaphor for the desktop became standardized" speaks to the popularity of the OS and the prevalence that it achieved. Nowhere does the author claim "first," "better," or other argumentative words that reveal the fanboy over the reporter. - disemq21, on 09/22/2009, -0/+0this list is very incomplete. It let aside lot of moments.. what about C Language, the creation of ethernet, Microsoft, Apple, the mouse, WWW, Google, open source (not just Linux..), .. ?? Can't group on a single ten-list.
- robbiedo, on 09/21/2009, -4/+4Really Windows 95? Didn't Apple, Atari, and Amiga beat Microsoft to the punch? People may not think much about Atari anymore, but in 1986/87, the 520ST running Gem was alot of computer for the money, and Amiga was much better for a little more money. Windows 95 was just relief that a real GUI could be run on the lagging installed Windows behemoth. Bob? Where are you Bob?
- anonymousmedic, on 09/21/2009, -2/+1you sound fat.
- FearlessFreep, on 09/21/2009, -5/+4three sensible
a few possible
rest stupid
buried - FearlessFreep, on 09/21/2009, -8/+7"Although many would argue that Windows is the most important operating system ever created..."
Who in HELL would argue that?!?! - asskicker32, on 09/21/2009, -3/+2Larry Dignan is an idiot.
- jman583, on 09/21/2009, -5/+2Nothing about porn?
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is 