Lars Poulsen's Professional Home Page

Computers and Operating Systems

Some people study comparative literature; I study comparative Operating Systems.

Current Systems

Current Desktop Systems

I use or have fairly recently used all of the following systems on machines either at work or at home:

Mainframes and SuperServers

Real-Time Operating Systems

RTOS (Real-Time Operating Systems) are designed for controlling embedded applications, i.e. computer programs hidden inside some device whose owner does not think of it as a computer, even if it may in fact contain a computer. RTOS are generally very small, and are designed to use a minimal amount of resources. There are many RTOS in common use; this page has a list of over 100 RTOS that are commercially available today.

Computers and Society

The rapid spread of computers - often faster than organizational systems and cultures can adapt to them - forces the leaders of our society to make rules and laws about things they don't understand. That can lead to undesirable results.

Peter G Neumann from SRI has devoted the last couple of decades to these risks.

Another issue is Cryptography. (See my encryption page).

The Future of Computing

The invention of computers and their subsequent evolution has transformed our society in the last half of the twentieth century. It is fascinating to speculate where it will take us next. For decades, we have been able to make projections based on what has been known as "Moore's Law": The amount of circuits that can be put on a single silicon chip doubles every 18 months. The practical effect of this has been that we have seen a new generation of computers every two years which would be twice as powerful as the last generation: Twice as fast, twice as much memory, twice as much disk storage space etc ... all for less money that the generation before.

... new and unsorted links


Revision history:
	$Log: index.htm,v $
	Revision 1.25  2002/11/02 23:50:35  lars
	Fix spelling error.
	
	Revision 1.24  2001/01/05 07:07:29  lars
	Added links to AS/400
	
	Revision 1.23  2001/01/05 05:20:01  lars
	Add more visible link to IBM model numbers.
	
	Revision 1.22  2000/12/15 14:00:23  lars
	Add links to crypto information.
	
	Revision 1.21  2000/08/15 01:28:23  lars
	These files now live in ../comphist/
	
	Revision 1.20  2000/07/23 23:26:16  lars
	*** empty log message ***
	
	Revision 1.19  2000/05/25 06:14:44  lars
	Moved "current cpus" out to separate page and added more
	resource links.
	
	Revision 1.18  2000/05/11 15:12:47  lars
	New page for "programming"
	Better orginization of Funny Stuff
	
	Revision 1.17  2000/02/16 01:07:31  lars
	Moved dualhoming link to Internet section.
	
	Revision 1.16  2000/02/01 23:10:07  lars
	Fixed broken links.
	
	Revision 1.15  2000/01/27 06:30:38  lars
	Miscellaneous updates.
	
	Revision 1.14  2000/01/17 23:58:25  lars
	Fix spelling error in IA64 URL.
	Remove link to book that is no longer available online.
	
	Revision 1.13  1999/12/16 07:22:08  lars
	Added PDP8.
	
	Revision 1.12  1999/11/08 16:46:34  lars
	More computer history links.
	
	Revision 1.11  1999/10/02 20:00:15  lars
	Migrated more bookmarks to links in the website.
	
	Revision 1.10  1999/09/23 06:56:03  lars
	Move links from bookmark file intop relevant pages.
	
	Revision 1.9  1999/09/07 04:20:41  lars
	Added encryption page.
	Added more detail in historical sections.
	Improved index page organization.
	
	Revision 1.8  1999/08/20 05:04:07  lars
	Added links to Dennis Ritchie's history articles.
	
	Revision 1.7  1999/08/13 06:28:59  lars
	*** empty log message ***
	
	Revision 1.6  1999/07/26 14:52:10  lars
	Brought "Connecting to the internet" up to date.
	
	Revision 1.5  1999/07/21 17:19:10  lars
	Add page for Linux, BeOS. Update Windows page.
	
	Revision 1.4  1999/07/04 07:57:10  lars
	Many small corrections.
	
	Revision 1.3  1999/06/26 22:17:44  lars
	Site re-organization.