[4D(Fordy(Ford) Ollie]

A mate told me that when computers started out, they had no operating system... that everything (or the 1 incredibly simple thing) they were used for was operated in the same state that a PC is before you install the OS.

This seems to make sense I thought, because surely to design and program a new OS, you need to do so from within another OS.

So I was perfectly happy with that, until I thought, how the hell did the first OS come about then? If it needed one before it to be created on, so I went back to thinking that they've always had an OS.

So I confused myself, like I did with the "chicken and the egg" theory, which by the way, the answer to is the chicken, which was basically deformed by way of evolution, and then had deformed chicklets.

Anywho, the OS thing...?

[thingie2]

They hardwired the OS into chips, so instead of, for example, writing the code 100100101, they would wire up the transistors to be in the state: high,low,low,high,low,low,high,low,high.

This way they just used tools, such as machines to create the OS, rather than programing it.


Well, the above is more of what I assumed to be what they did, but I think I remember seeing somewhere that was what happened too.

[MJM]

It's true that way back (pre 1950s I think) machines/computers ran without operating systems. The "operating system" was more or less the mechanical switches that were activated by certain punchhole combinations in paper or later on tape.
The next step was shared libraries, or what we call libraries now, so common tasks could be used without having to create the punch card for it every time. (Basically the cards were being stored so the machine could read them in when required)
Debugging was doen by electrical signals of sorts (usually lights).
After that operating systems started appearing for mainframes and it just went on that way, mostly coming from the libraries being loaded before a program starts and "cleaning" up after the program ends.
Now something many people seem to fail to realise is that machines only communicate in machine code (assembly language). To load the OS you need something written in assembly that loads up the required utilities to interpret the other wise written code.
And since it's written in ones and zeros, it can be altered mechanically (old school) or electornically (e.g. "flashing the BIOS")


This is a very crude and short cut method and all I really remember from first year and since it wasn't required for the exam I forgot a lot of it more or less.