Snow Leopard and Windows 7: Two flavors of the same GUI?

ZDNet ^ | June 4th, 2009 | Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Has Microsoft, after more than 20 years of work, finally come up with an operating system that rivals the Mac OS? Are the two just different flavors of the same GUI?

Hadley Stern, writing for Apple Matters, thinks this might be the case.

It may have taken Microsoft 20 odd years to figure this one out but there is some pretty big news on the horizon. Of course the market-share battle is lost for Apple, although it continues to chip away here and there. But the innovation-share battle continues. And the big big big news:

Windows 7 Doesn’t Really Suck

…

Unless Apple is hiding something very very very big with Snow Leopard Apple is about to lose the high-ground (and bullying rights) when it comes to its operating system. The blunders of Vista were easy to pick at, picking on Windows 7 will be nitpicking at best, stupidity at worst. For all intents and purposes Snow Leopard and Windows 7 are two flavors of the same GUI.

I’m not so sure. Why?

[ketsu]

Actually, no. Dave Cutler helped design VMS, and then designed NT. Unfortunately Bill Gates had a change of heart in the middle of the stream and told Cutler to basically make a 32-bit version of Windows 3.1. Ah, what NT could have been had techniclally Gates not decided to ride NT on the popularity of 3.1, and make it compatible.

Actually yes, microsoft paid 60 million to DEC for the VMS code that Cutler put in.

It's a combined Mach/BSD. Instead of using the BSD kernel and userland, Apple replaced the I/O and driver part of the kernel with Mach. This helped make the system more portable across architectures, and it obviously helped Apple immensely.

No. Apple *started* with Mach(see MkLinux) and decided to go with NextStep, which had a BSD subsystem grafted on. You're putting the cart before the horse.

Windows has almost no BSD code left. In the beginning NT had the BSD network stack but that was gone by the next version. The only thing left is a few little command line utilities like ftp.exe.

Fair enough. But my point stands. Is Windows NT BSD? The question is hypotehtical in case anyone here is rhetorically impaired. Windows contains quite a bit of BSD code as well. Windows has almost no BSD code left. In the beginning NT had the BSD network stack but that was gone by the next version. The only thing left is a few little command line utilities like ftp.exe.

[ketsu]

By that logic Windows doesn't understand networks directly because it has a separate network stack too,

You don't get it. Think of the difference between a Unix device driver and a socket and get back to me.

[ketsu]

Did you miss your starbucks this morning ? Son. VMS was a radical system in it's day, but users were not connected by any networks except landlines.

This is the fortieth anniversary of Unix© from Bell Labs.

Unix© was designed from the beginning as a multi-user networked (arpanet) robust fault tolerant system.

Yes VMS was radical. Nothing to do with the current discussion.

No Unix didn't have a standard networking subsystem until 15 years or so after it's creation. Not only that, but networking came from BSD not out of 1127. The 1127 guys *hated* sockets and still do because it broke the Unix interface.

During the DARPA days of BSD development, DOD added requirements for robustness and resilience against hostile enemy attacks.

And the sky is blue. Both comments are equally relevant.

Segmentation and fault tolerance was mandated for use in phone switches.

Unix was designed as a typesetting system.

There were API interfaces in Unix© prior to 1983 when BSD sockets were introduced in 4.2

Yes, and they all sucked. Ask the 1127 guys.

Just for your education:

Ignorant and pendantic is no way to go through life son.

Rick Rashid was a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University in 1983 when he began work on Mach, a Unix-based message-passing operating system for multiprocessing applications. Mach was built on a BSD version of Unix; it was a "microkernel" that replaced the BSD kernel.

And?

You claim that A T & T Bell Labs does not understand networks What a hoot LOL rotflol

Yawn... I'm claiming the UCB didn't understand networks. The 1127 guys put in a better interface(dial strings) in the mid to late 80's IIRC.

I'll take certified Unix© with a BenutzerFreundlichkeit interface over some cobbled together junk from Billie Gates, the huckster from Redmond.

There are some people today who have had too many self-affirmation courses and have never developed interpersonal skill sets in order to facilitate communication.

I never said that I use windows. Just that you were stupid.

As background, I was an Member of Technical Staff in Bell Labs all during the eighties.

My boss was Distinguished MTS and an assignee on many patents including Audix©. For those who are not familiar with Audix©, it was the first voicemail.

I met Kernighan and Richie at conferences.

I worked with F.P. (Ivan) Polensky.

I used both Sys V and BSD 4.3 with kshell and Emacs on BLITs with mice on platforms from naked boards to multiprocessor mainframes.

I supported the Bell Labs Network(BLN) a combination of uucp and Jes3 store and forwarding.

Spent some time building shell code for typesetting on office lasers.

I was the Project Manager for the porting of switch backplanes CAD/CAM from IBM mainframes to Sun workstations.

Worked in teams porting IBM System Assembler Macros to "C" for use in phone switches.

And you're still an idiot. Congratulations. I'll bet that's not on your CV OBTW are you a member of Mensa ?

[Uri’el-2012]

You seem to have many deep seated issues.

Your interpersonal skill-sets are lacking.

I'll bet I was working in Bell Labs while you were still in diapers.

You need to work on your reading and comprehensions skill-sets

You misread and assume things which were never said.

I have not paid my Mensa dues in years.

Many years before they allowed SAT test scores for admission

I'll still take certified Unix© with a BenutzerFreundlichkeit interface

[Swordmaker]

Windows has almost no BSD code left. In the beginning NT had the BSD network stack but that was gone by the next version.

Wasn't rebuilding the network stack one of the big changes claimed in Vista?

[antiRepublicrat]

Actually yes, microsoft paid 60 million to DEC for the VMS code that Cutler put in.

That's interesting, because interviews with the developers make it seem like they wrote it from scratch. I've never heard of this sale before. Any reference to it?

No. Apple *started* with Mach(see MkLinux) and decided to go with NextStep

Semantics. You can still call it a BSD for most intents and purposes. If it looks like a duck...

[ketsu]

You seem to have many deep seated issues. Your interpersonal skill-sets are lacking.

I'll bet I was working in Bell Labs while you were still in diapers.

You need to work on your reading and comprehensions skill-sets

You misread and assume things which were never said.

I have not paid my Mensa dues in years.

Many years before they allowed SAT test scores for admission

I'll still take certified Unix© with a BenutzerFreundlichkeit interface

Translation: I still have no idea what I'm talking about but if I claim I'm smart maybe somebody will believe me.

[antiRepublicrat]

You don't get it. Think of the difference between a Unix device driver and a socket and get back to me.

Either way it is a subsystem dedicated to networking.

[Uri’el-2012]

Translation: I still have no idea what I'm talking about but if I claim I'm smart maybe somebody will believe me.

Mazol Tov !

Have wonderful journey on the wide road of life.

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach

[Scythian]

Hilarious Episode : Lisa goes to the Mapple Store

[Uri’el-2012]

Microsoft

Was that a design decision, or a marketing decision, do you think? I've always thought they welded the browser to the OS specifically so you couldn't get rid of Explorer, not because it increased functionality.

And that was their downfall to viruses and worms

[ketsu]

Either way it is a subsystem dedicated to networking.

You still don't get it. What makes Unix, unix is its adherence to the file abstraction. Since sockets don't work as files they break much of what makes unix good(i.e. the ability to treat any data endpoint as a file and read and write to it from the shell). Windows has always been badly engineered from that perspective.

You're trying to pass the buck on bad engineering by blaming something else for being worse. It doesn't work like that.

[Terpfen]

I’m talking about Windows, not OS X. I already have an Applications stack in my OS X Dock, complete with a hack to put a drawer icon in front.

[ketsu]

That's interesting, because interviews with the developers make it seem like they wrote it from scratch. I've never heard of this sale before. Any reference to it?

Tanenbaum mentions it when Microsoft was trying to claim Linux had proprietary IP. It never went to litigation. Microsoft just paid out.

Semantics. You can still call it a BSD for most intents and purposes. If it looks like a duck...

No it's *not* semantics. Apple wanted Mach with a Unix interface. They tried Linux on Mach as a straight up Microkernel and the moved to Nextstep's BSD subsystem in the same address space as the Microkernel for performance reasons.

The key to Apple's decision is Mach with a Unix interface. BSD just came along for the ride because Nextstep had a viable solution, not because BSD was somehow blessed.

[antiRepublicrat]

Tanenbaum mentions it when Microsoft was trying to claim Linux had proprietary IP. It never went to litigation. Microsoft just paid out.

So Microsoft probably got sued over "know-how" or "trade secrets" due to the use of the VMS designers and settled. I don't think there was any VMS code involved.

Apple wanted Mach with a Unix interface. They tried Linux on Mach as a straight up Microkernel

I've never heard of that either. I thought they tried Pink OS, then Copland, then looked at BeOS, but they wanted too-high a price. Then Jobs pitched NeXTstep (Mach/BSD) as a better alternative, Apple bought the company and made a couple releases based on it. Then Jobs took over and developed OS X from NeXTstep and the existing MacOS. I'd like a source from where you heard differently.

[antiRepublicrat]

I see what you are talking about now.

[antiRepublicrat]

I thought you were talking in general.

What’s this about a hack?

[Terpfen]

If you get an icon of a drawer and place it into the relevant Stack, you can adjust its properties so that it shows up at the "top" of the listing, layering it on top of the Stack and making everything behind it look as if it's inside a drawer. See here for more. There are a bunch of different icons and styles of icons available, just Google for Stacks drawer icon and check out the image search results.

[Terpfen]

Also, the entire point of my previous post was elaborating on why the Start menu stinks and why Microsoft needs a new interface in place of the Start menu/taskbar paradigm. They don’t necessarily need something like Apple’s interface, but if they’re going to position Windows as being appropriate for the low-res displays of netbooks and the high-res displays of professional desktops, then they need a new interface.

[ketsu]

I've never heard of that either. I thought they tried Pink OS, then Copland, then looked at BeOS, but they wanted too-high a price. Then Jobs pitched NeXTstep (Mach/BSD) as a better alternative, Apple bought the company and made a couple releases based on it. Then Jobs took over and developed OS X from NeXTstep and the existing MacOS. I'd like a source from where you heard differently.

Mklinux was way back in 96.