A disk cloning program needs to be able to read even protected operating system files on the source disk, and must guarantee that the system is in a consistent state at the time of reading. It must also overwrite any operating system already present on the destination disk. To simplify these tasks, most disk cloning programs can run under an operating system different from the native operating system of the host computer, for example, MS-DOS or an equivalent such as PC-DOS or DR-DOS, or Linux. The computer is booted from this operating system, the cloning program is loaded and copies the Windows file system. Many programs (e.g. Acronis True Image) can clone a disk, or make an image, from within Windows, with special provision for copying open files; but an image cannot be restored onto the Windows System Drive under Windows.

A disc cloning program running under non-Windows operating systems must have device drivers or equivalent for all devices used. The manufacturers of some devices do not provide suitable drivers, so the manufacturers of disk cloning software must write their own drivers, or include device access functionality in some other way. This applies to tape drives, CD and DVD readers and writers, and USB and FireWire drives. Cloning software contains its own TCP/IP stack for multicast transfer of data where required.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Disk cloning, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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The application ran on terminal with plaintext 24×80.

The first version was able to hyperlinking between files.

ENQUIRE was written in the Pascal programming language and implemented on a Norsk Data NORD-10 under SINTRAN III and version 2 was later ported to MS-DOS and to VAX/VMS.

==Further Reading

*

Adapted from the Wikipedia article ENQUIRE, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Apple Lisa and Macintosh (and later, the Apple IIgs)

Beginning in 1979, started by Steve Jobs and led by Jef Raskin, the Lisa and Macintosh teams at Apple Computer (which included former members of the Xerox PARC group) continued to develop such ideas. The Macintosh, released in 1984, was the first commercially successful product to use a GUI. A desktop metaphor was used, in which files looked like pieces of paper; directories looked like file folders; there were a set of desk accessories like a calculator, notepad, and alarm clock that the user could place around the screen as desired; and the user could delete files and folders by dragging them to a trash can on the screen. Drop down menus were also introduced.

There is still some controversy over the amount of influence that Xerox’s PARC work, as opposed to previous academic research, had on the GUIs of Apple’s Lisa and Macintosh, but it is clear that the influence was extensive, because first versions of Lisa GUIs even lacked icons. These prototype GUIs are at least mouse driven, but completely ignored the WIMP concept. Rare screenshots of first GUIs of Apple Lisa prototypes are shown [http://www.pegasus3d.com/apple_screens.html here] and [http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Busy_Being_Born.txt&topic=User%20Interface&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium here]. Note also that Apple was invited by PARC to view their research, and a number of PARC employees subsequently moved to Apple to work on the Lisa and Macintosh GUI. However, the Apple work extended PARC’s considerably, adding manipulatable icons, a fixed drop-down menu bar and drag&drop manipulation of objects in the file system (see Macintosh Finder) for example. A list of the improvements made by Apple to the PARC interface can be read [http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=On_Xerox,_Apple_and_Progress.txt&topic=Software%20Design&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date here] (folklore.org) It’s hard to say which particular features were originated in which project, though. Jef Raskin warns that many of the reported facts in the history of the PARC and Macintosh development are inaccurate, distorted or even fabricated, due to the lack of usage by historians of direct primary sources.

In 1986 the Apple IIgs was launched, a very advanced model of the Apple II successful series, based on 16-bit technology (in fact, virtually two machines into one). It came with a new operating system, the Apple GS/OS, which features a Finder-like GUI, very similar to that of the Macintosh series, able to deal with the advanced graphic abilities of its Video Graphics Chip (VGC).

Graphical Environment Manager (GEM)

Digital Research (DRI) created the Graphical Environment Manager as an add-on program for personal computers. GEM was developed to work with existing CP/M and MS-DOS operating systems on business computers such as IBM-compatibles. It was developed from DRI software, known as GSX, designed by a former PARC employee. The similarity to the Macintosh desktop led to a copyright lawsuit from Apple Computer, and a settlement which involved some changes to GEM. This was to be the first of a series of ‘look and feel’ lawsuits related to GUI design in the 1980s.

GEM received widespread use in the consumer market from 1985, when it was made the default user interface built in to the TOS operating system of the Atari ST line of personal computers. It was also bundled by other computer manufacturers and distributors, such as Amstrad. Later, it was distributed with the best-sold Digital Research version of DOS for IBM PC compatibles, the DR-DOS 6.0. The GEM desktop faded from the market with the withdrawal of the Atari ST line in 1992 and with the popularity of the Microsoft Windows 3.0 in the PC front by the same years.

DeskMate

Tandy’s DeskMate appeared in the early 1980s on its TRS-80 machines and was ported to its Tandy 1000 range in 1984. Like most PC GUIs of the time it depended on MS-DOS. The application was popular at the time and included a number of programs like Draw, Text and Calendar as well as attracting outside investment such as Lotus 1-2-3 for DeskMate.

Amiga Intuition and the Workbench

The Amiga computer was launched by Commodore in 1985 with a GUI called Workbench based on an internal engine which drives all the input events called Intuition, and developed almost entirely by RJ Mical. The first versions used a blue/orange/white/black default palette, which was selected for high contrast on televisions and composite monitors. Workbench presented directories as drawers to fit in with the “workbench” theme.

Intuition was the widget and graphics library that made the GUI work. It was driven by user events through the mouse, keyboard, and other input devices.

Due to a mistake made by the Commodore sales department, the first floppies of AmigaOS which were released with Amiga1000 named the whole OS “Workbench”. Since then, users and CBM itself referred to “Workbench” as the nickname for the whole AmigaOS (including Amiga DOS, Extras, etc.). This common consent ended with release of version 2.0 of AmigaOS, which re-introduced proper names to the installation floppies of AmigaDOS, Workbench, Extras, etc.).

Early versions of AmigaOS did treat the Workbench as just another window on top of a blank screen, but this is due to the ability of AmigaOS to have invisible screens with a chromakey or a genlock – one of the most advanced features of Amiga platform – even without losing the visibility of Workbench itself. In later AmigaOS versions Workbench could be set as a borderless desktop.

Amiga users were able to boot their computer into a command line interface (aka. CLI/shell). This was a keyboard-based environment without the Workbench GUI. Later they could invoke it with the CLI/SHELL command LoadWB which performs the task to load Workbench GUI.

One major difference between other OS’s of the time and for some time after was the Amiga’s fully Multi-Tasking Operating System, a powerful built in Animation system using a hardware blitter and copper and 4 channels of 26k 8 bit sampled sound. This made the Amiga the first Multi Media computer years before other OS’s.

Like most GUIs of the day Amiga’s Intuition followed Xerox, and sometimes Apple’s lead, but a CLI was included which dramatically extended the functionality of the platform, but Cli/Shell of Amiga is not just a simple text based interface like in MS-DOS but it is another graphic process driven by Intuition engine and with same gadgets included in Amiga graphics.library and serving the GUI process and CLI/Shell interface integrates itself with the Workbench, sharing the same privileges with the GUI.

The Amiga Workbech still evolved over the 1990s, far beyond the official withdrawn from Commodore in 1994. See the next section.

MS-DOS file managers and utility suites

Because most of the very early IBM PC and compatibles lack any common true graphical capability (they only shared the 80-column basic text mode compatible with the original MDA display adapter), a series of file managers arose, including Microsoft’s DOS Shell, which features typical GUI elements as menus, push buttons, lists with scrollbars and mouse pointer. The name Text user interface was later invented to name this kind of interface. Many MS-DOS text mode applications, like the default text editor for MS-DOS 5.0 (and related tools, like QBasic), also shared the same philosophy. The IBM DOS Shell included with IBM DOS 5.0 (circa 1992) supported both text display modes and actual graphics display modes, making it both a TUI and a GUI, depending on the chosen mode.

Advanced file managers for MS-DOS were able to redefine character shapes with EGA and better display adapters, giving some basic low resolution icons and graphical interface elements, including an arrow (instead of a coloured cell block) for the mouse pointer. When the display adapter lacks the ability to change the character’s shapes, they default to the CP437 character set found in the adapter’s ROM. Some popular utility suites for MS-DOS, as Norton Utilities (pictured) and PC Tools used these techniques as well.

DESQview was a text mode multitasking program introduced in July 1985. Running on top of MS-DOS, it allowed users to run multiple DOS programs concurrently in windows. It was the first program to bring multitasking and windowing capabilities to a DOS environment in which existing DOS programs could be used. DESQview was not a true GUI but offered certain components of one, such as resizable, overlapping windows and mouse pointing.

Applications under MS-DOS with proprietary true GUIs

To take the maximum advantage possible in lack of a true common GUI under MS-DOS, the most of the graphical applications which worked with EGA, VGA and better graphic cards had proprietary built-in GUIs, before the MS-Windows age. One of the best known was Deluxe Paint, a popular painting software with a typical WIMP interface.

The original Adobe Acrobat Reader executable file for MS-DOS was able to run on both the standard Windows 3.x GUI and the standard DOS command prompt. When it was launched from the command prompt, it provides its own true GUI (on VGA), which provides the full of its functionality to read PDF files.

Microsoft Windows (16-bit versions)

Windows 1.0 was a GUI for the MS-DOS operating system that had been the OS of choice for IBM PC and compatible computers since 1981. Windows 2.0 followed, but it wasn’t until the 1990 launch of Windows 3.0, based on Common User Access that its popularity truly exploded. The GUI has seen minor redesigns since, mainly the networking enabled Windows 3.11 and its Win32s 32-bit patch. The 16-bit line of MS Windows were discontinued with the introduction of Windows 95 and Windows NT 32-bit based architecture in the 1990s. See the next section.

The main window of a given application can occupy the full screen in ”maximized” status. The users must then to switch between maximized applications using the Alt+Tab keyboard shortcut; no alternative with the mouse except for de-maximize. When none of the running application windows is maximized, switching can be done by clicking on a partially visible window, as is the common way in other GUIs.

In 1988, Apple sued Microsoft for copyright infringement of the LISA and Apple Macintosh GUI. The court case lasted 4 years before almost all of Apple’s claims were denied on a contractual technicality. Subsequent appeals by Apple were also denied. Microsoft and Apple apparently entered a final, private settlement of the matter in 1997.

GEOS

GEOS was launched in 1986. Originally written for the 8-bit home computer Commodore 64 and shortly after, the Apple II series it was later ported to IBM PC systems. It came with several application programs like a calendar and word processor, and a cut-down version served as the basis for America Online’s DOS client. Compared to the competing Windows 3.0 GUI it could run reasonably well on simpler hardware. But it was targeted at 8-bit machines and the 16-bit computer age was dawning.

The X Window System

The standard windowing system in the Unix world is the X Window System (commonly X11 or X), first released in the mid-1980s. The W Window System (1983) was the precursor to X; X was developed at MIT as Project Athena. Its original purpose was to allow users of the newly emerging graphic terminals to access remote graphics workstations without regard to the workstation’s operating system or the hardware. Due largely to the availability of the source code used to write X, it has become the standard layer for management of graphical and input/output devices and for the building of both local and remote graphical interfaces on virtually all Unix, Linux and other Unix-like operating systems, with the notable exception of Mac OS X.

X allows a graphical terminal user to make use of remote resources on the network as if they were all located locally to the user by running a single module of software called the X server. The software running on the remote machine is called the client application. X’s network transparency protocols allow the display and input portions of any application to be separated from the remainder of the application and ‘served up’ to any of a large number of remote users. X is available today as free software.

NeWS

The PostScript-based NeWS (Network extensible Window System) was developed by Sun Microsystems in the mid 1980′s. For several years SunOS included a window system combining NeWS and the X Window System. Although NeWS was considered technically elegant by some commentators, Sun eventually dropped the product. Unlike X, NeWS was always proprietary software.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article History of the graphical user interface, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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* PC-MOS: an MS-DOS-like multiuser operating system with support for multi-tasking on serial terminals.

* PC-MOS/386: a later version of PC-MOS using features not present on processors prior to the 80386.

* LANLINK: a NetBIOS-ready local area network that leverages serial and parallel port connected platforms

* MultiLink: a multitasking environment for DOS

PC/MOS figured prominently in the lawsuit ”Arizona Retail Systems, Inc. v. The Software Link, Inc.”, where Arizona Retail Systems claimed The Software Link violated implied warranties on PC/MOS. The case is notable because The Software Link argued that it had disclaimed the implied warranties via a license agreement on the software’s shrinkwrap licensing. The result of the case, which Arizona Retail Systems won, helped to establish US legal precedent about the enforceability or otherwise of shrinkwrap

Adapted from the Wikipedia article The Software Link, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Windows Preinstallation Environment (aka Windows PE, WinPE) is a lightweight version of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows Server 2008 R2 that is used for the deployment of workstations and servers. It is intended as a 32-bit or 64-bit replacement for MS-DOS during the installation phase of Windows, and can be booted via PXE, CD-ROM, USB flash drive or hard disk. Traditionally used by large corporations and OEMs (to preinstall Windows client operating systems to PCs during manufacturing), it is now widely available free of charge via the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Windows Preinstallation Environment, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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The original version was written at the University of Oklahoma by Robert Alan Koeneke and Jimmey Wayne Todd, after they became hooked on ”Rogue” but could not run it on the VAX-11/780 minicomputer to which they had access.

Version 1.0 was written in VMS Pascal and completed in the summer of 1983. From around 1985 the source code was widely distributed under a license that permitted sharing and modification but not commercial use. Koeneke’s last release was ”Moria 4.7” in 1986 or 1987, although more recent versions have been compiled by a variety of authors. ”Moria” inspired a number of derivative versions. Jim E. Wilson created ”Umoria”, a modified version in C for UNIX and MS-DOS. At the University of Washington a modified Pascal version named ”Imoria” was developed, which has been ported to C by Steve Kertes.

The current maintainer of Moria is David Grabiner.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Moria (video game), under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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The pipeline concept and the vertical-bar notation was invented by Douglas McIlroy, one of the authors of the early command shells, after he noticed that much of the time they were processing the output of one program as the input to another. His ideas were implemented in 1973 when Ken Thompson added pipes to the UNIX operating system. The idea was eventually ported to other operating systems, such as DOS, OS/2, Microsoft Windows, and BeOS, often with the same notation.

Although developed independently, Unix pipes are similar to, and were preceded by the ‘communication files’ developed by Ken Lochner in the 1960′s for the Dartmouth Time Sharing System.

The robot in the icon for Apple’s Automator, which also uses a pipeline concept to chain repetitive commands together, holds a pipe in homage to the original Unix concept.

Other operating systems

This feature of Unix was borrowed by other operating systems, such as Taos and MS-DOS, and eventually became the pipes and filters design pattern of software engineering.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Pipeline (Unix), under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was originally designed to be a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement consumer versions of Windows that were based on MS-DOS. NT was the first fully 32-bit version of Windows, whereas its consumer-oriented counterparts, Windows 3.1x and Windows 9x, were 16-bit/32-bit hybrids. Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Home Server, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7 are based on Windows NT, although they are not branded as Windows NT.

Although various Microsoft publications, including a 1998 question-and-answer session with Bill Gates, reveal that the letters ‘NT’ were expanded to ‘New Technology’ for marketing purposes, they originally stood for “N-Ten,” the codename of the Intel i860 XR processor for which NT was initially developed. However, they no longer carry any specific meaning.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Windows NT, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Digital Research, Inc. (aka DR or DRI; originally Intergalactic Digital Research) was the company created by Dr. Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related products. It was the first large software company in the microcomputer world. Digital Research should not be confused with Digital Equipment Corporation; the two were not affiliated. DR was based in Pacific Grove, California.

The company’s operating systems, starting with CP/M for 8080/Z80-based microcomputers, were the de facto standard of their era, as MS-DOS and MS Windows came later. DR’s product suite included the original CP/M and its various offshoots; DR-DOS which was a MS-DOS compatible version of CP/M, and MP/M, the multi-user CP/M. The first 16-bit system was CP/M-86, which was to be unsuccessful in competition with MS-DOS. There followed Concurrent CP/M, a single-user version of the multi-tasking MP/M-86 featuring “virtual consoles” from which applications could be launched to run concurrently. Successive revisions of this system, which gradually supported MS-DOS applications and the FAT filesystem, were labelled Concurrent DOS, Concurrent DOS XM and Concurrent DOS 386.

Soon after the introduction of the Intel 80286, DR introduced a radical new real-time system, initially called DOS-286 and subsequently Flex OS. This exploited the greater memory addressing capability of the new CPU to provide a more flexible multi-tasking environment. There was a small but powerful set of system APIs, each with a synchronous and an asynchronous variant. Pipes were supported, and all named resources could be aliased by setting Environment variables. This system was to enjoy enduring favour in point-of-sale systems and was adopted by the IBM 4690 OS.

Digital Research was purchased by Novell in 1991, primarily for Novell to gain access to the OS line.

DR produced a selection of programming language compilers and interpreters for their OS-supported platforms, including C, Pascal, COBOL, Forth, PL/I, PL/M, BASIC, and Logo. They also produced a microcomputer version of the GKS graphics standard (related to NAPLPS) called GSX, and later used this as the basis of their GEM GUI. Less known are their application programs, limited largely to the GSX-based DR-DRAW and a small suite of GUI programs for GEM.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Digital Research, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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The project was started in 1995 with the goal of a free DOS. Until 1998 it was based exclusively on FreeDOS, and since then has been based on SEAL GUI.

In 2000 the E/OS project switched to a larger focus, to create a system capable of running programs written for multiple platforms, including BeOS, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, OS/2, MS-DOS, and Linux, on the same computer simultaneously.

Versions

On January 24, 2008, the EOS website was updated. At the same time a note was placed on the home page, saying that a new version will be released with a custom kernel.

0.3.0

On September 30, 2007, version 0.3.0 (beta) was released in source code only, then on March 26, 2008, version 0.3.0 was released on CD-ROM as a Live CD, and can be bought on the popular internet store, Lulu, for $28 USD.

Version 0.3.0 Live CD has not yet been released for download.

0.2.9

On December 28, 2006, version 0.2.9 was released. It added support for executing applications outside EOS, multimedia support, network support, 3D support for win32 based on libmesa and improved update capabilities via the utility iget.

0.2.8

0.2.7

On 16 May 2006 version 0.2.7 was released with a new GUI and language selection for English and Spanish. The 0.2.7 release is capable of being set up under Windows 9x/XP and also has added network support.

0.2.6

On 23 March 2006 version 0.2.6 was released as a Qemu image that makes operating under Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Darwin, BeOS, possible. The 0.2.6 release is fully compatible with Linux and FreeBSD programs. The support for Unix systems and the Ext2 file system is also new.

0.2.5C

On 27 July 2005 version 0.2.5C was released with the first step toward comprehensive network support and better Linux compatibility. For the first time the system is optionally available on CD.

0.2.5B

On 9 March 2005 version 0.2.5B was released, which improved the new Kernel 205, with added support for Windows and Linux programs, partial Mac OS support and full DOS support.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article E/OS, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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