this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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UNIX systems in the 1960s. They are still in use to this day and modified ones run our phones, Steam Decks and space craft!
This is a matter of interpretation, I'll wager, but to me, "before its time" implies something that came about too early, before the world was ready for it. I'd argue that Unix was of its time, since it was the operating system that went on to widespread success. That is to say, I think that it's Multics that was before its time. It was derided at the time for being too large and complex (2MB of memory—outrageous!!), and the creators of Unix were Multics programmers who borrowed many of its concepts to make a smaller, less resource-intensive OS that ran better on the computers of the day.
I mean, most of us were stuck using inferior operating systems until Linux and OS X became mainstream versions of it we could use. It's not like everyone got to use UNIX from day one.
I think if anything I'd view it from the other direction. We had machines with hardware support for memory protection and multitasking and we got DOS. DOS was the abberation.
Microsoft was a Xenix vendor before it sold DOS.
Fair, my thoughts are of the current utilization and use-case we have for Unix-like systems makes it so dynamic and universal. I absolutely love it.