Have you ever wondered about how Computer Operating Systems have changed over the years. Lots of modern computer operating systems (OS) are a lot older than you would think. Some modern operating systems having roots going as far back as the early 1960's when computers programs were manually scheduled by operators who would load paper cards into card readers. To help show this I have been working on a timeline showing how the various families of operating systems have evolved and how development of new computers has influenced other newer operating systems. This site is is dedicated to finding and documenting the entire history of computer operating systems. A lot of the earlyist operating systems were not properly documented at the time because computers and operating systems were new and things were evolving in an adhoc fashion. The initial few versions of the OS Timeline were my personal efforts and research but I feel now it is time to invite the internet community join in and help. Computer power has increased massively over last 50 years whilst the physical size has shunk but with this the variety and speed of evolution has also increased. Which every new processor there has been new versions of operating systems to exploit the new features. This makes documenting the ever increasing numbers and versions very difficult. I am currently in the process of cross referencing the listing of computer operating systems based on my timeline diagram and splitting out the information I have into the families of related operating systems by computer and/or operating system manufacturer.

Please us the forums or contact me if you have any information, correction or recollections about any operating system mentioned here and especially contact me if you spot something missing.

Thank you for supporting this living history of computers and operating systems.
-- Patrick Mulvany

The current version of my graphical timeline is available from the Timeline section or here :-