this post was submitted on 29 Feb 2024
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History of Computer Hardware
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Based on your comment about technical debt, I should clarify.
My descriptions aren't historical at all. They're just meant to show how it might be possible for you to do this as a personal project. I felt like that might kind of "scratch the itch" of your original question.
The actual history of operating systems is fairly complex with many companies having developed them independently over time, but perhaps borrowing concepts from previous operating systems and academic papers.
For example, Windows NT was built more or less from scratch. However, I think I read that a couple things are inspired by prior work of the devs on VAX/VMS.
But yeah modern operating systems are pretty complex. Too much for any one person to fully and perfectly keep track of.
Having written all this I think it would be cool to develop the process I described into a series of courses where you learn how computers work, hands on, from discrete transistor logic to logic chips to ICs and building an old school 8-bit computer, all the way up to writing the OS.