The Operating System Deadpool
By Harry McCracken | Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 1:13 pm
My post on the beginning of the end of the Mac has put me in a mood to contemplate the mortality of operating systems. If anybody out there thinks that, say, Windows will utterly cease to exist in the next decade or two–well, you’re wrong. But assuming that mankind makes it though a few more centuries, the day will come when every operating system currently in use suffers the same sad fate as Pontiac and Mercury, Woolworths, LIFE magazine, and other basic facts of life that eventually went away.
(I do predict, however, that Blondie, Log Cabin Syrup, and Larry King will be around for as long as humanity survives, and possibly longer.)
Anyhow, here’s a silly little poll:
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14 Comments For This Post
June 9th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
By iOS… do you mean Cisco or iPhone?
If it’s Cisco… that has my Vote
June 9th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
I voted Linux. Not because I think it has been or will be anything really worth saving, but in the sense that it is incapable of death.
June 9th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Tricky question. What if an OS eventually evolves to the point where it would be unrecognizable today, but there is a clear evolutionary path back to a current OS? Does that count as a continuation of the current OS?
June 9th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Long live MS-DOS!
June 9th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
I picked DOS purely for the reason that certain obsolete technology from the DOS era is still being used today in some capacity and nobody want’s to change things. Certain technologies have a way of sticking around.
June 9th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Oh and for the record, iOS has to refer to the Apple OS. Cisco’s operating system is called IOS (note the uppercase)
June 9th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
It’s Linux. Apple and Microsoft may choose to pull the plug on OS X and Windows someday. (Even Microsoft eventually killed DOS). But I can’t imagine how this would work for Linux.
June 9th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Linux will evolve eternally by its very nature. Its future form may not be recognizable to us today.
June 9th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Linux is doomed to forever aimlessly wander the technology world in a vain effort to be anything and everything for every use. Jack of all trades, master of none. (Particularly desktop use. The twelve or so Linux devs per project who know what they’re doing code-wise are not UI engineers. As long as the neckbeard code patrol writes software for *them*, not *average Joe Sixpack users*, they’ll be lucky to be more than statistical noise in desktop market share.)
June 9th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
Why do tech people insist on calling non-tech computer users “Joe Sixpack?” Hey Anonymous, can you rebuild an engine, remove an appendix, paint a masterpiece, perform on stage or one of the hundreds of tasks that don’t require knowledge of operating system internals?
Being a techie doesn’t make one any smarter or any less a sixpack than a Doctor.
June 9th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
OS X is the core system under both Mac OS X and iOS, so this is a little confusingly written. It’s clearer to say “Mac OS” than “OS X” if you’re talking about the Mac.
June 10th, 2010 at 6:09 am
I think that there are two issues; a company killing off an OS, and then the OS dying in the wild. I am sure if I did through my stuff I could turn up a Win95 CD or maybe even a MS-DOS 6.0 diskette or two.
I am always amazed when I see businesses using a new(ish) Windows machine, and they are running a legacy software app with a DOS interface. They have used it so long, and are so tied into it (“I know how it works”) and have so many records in it that they are unwilling or unable to break free.
June 10th, 2010 at 6:38 am
z/OS (aka MVS)
IBM Mainframes.
August 16th, 2011 at 9:34 pm
My vote goes to Linux.