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10 'Coulda-Been-Windows' Operating Systems That Never Took Off...

by Terrence O'Brien on April 6, 2009 at 08:17 AM

Ten Operating Systems to Bring a Nostalgic Tear to Your Eye
Sure, you've all heard of Windows and Apple's OS X, and at least some of you are familiar with Linux, but those aren't the only operating systems out there.

Many of you have probably never heard of NeXTStep, the operating system developed by Steve Jobs's company NeXT after he left Apple. NeXTStep eventually became the basis for OS X when Jobs was asked to rejoin the home of the Mac. NeXTStep was just another competitor, though, when Apple began looking to replace its aging Mac OS. Another front runner was a little known system called BeOS, which briefly enjoyed some popularity as an alternative to Mac OS, but eventually faded into obscurity.

Another gone, and pretty much forgotten, system (unless you've spent a lot of time at your community TV station) is AmigaOS. Amiga allowed users to run several programs at once long before Microsoft and Apple offered the same functionality, and was powerful enough to generate backgrounds on TV shows like 'Babylon 5' and 'Max Headroom' at a time when many PC users were still fumbling around with DOS.

Check out the rest of Computer World's article of "Gone but Not Forgotten" operating systems for a healthy dose of computing nostalgia. [From: Computer World]

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Tags: amiga, beos, dos, linux, nextstep, nostalgia, operating system, OperatingSystem, os, os x, OsX, windows

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