Two years ago I couldn’t believe that there is no relevant article about the earliest operating systems. So, I wrote one short post about GM-NAA I/O so Wikipedia would be able to cite this post as a source for writing an article. Seven months later Steve Holland from General Motors Research Laboratories sent to me the citation from IEEE Annals of the History of Computing about GM OS and GM-NAA I/O.

Today Robert L. Patrick, the architect of GM-NAA I/O, sent to me his document about development of that operating system. As someone who has passion toward the history of technology, I am really excited with that. If you ever discovered something important in your field of interest, you will know how do I feel.

But, there is one sad fact. It seems that computer generation isn’t mature enough to take care about their history. Yes, present and future are more important than history, but history is very important for understanding our present and our future. Besides that, proponents of historical events related to computers are mostly alive. Unlike historians of other fields, we are able to document our history well. But, we are not doing that.

For the list of the list of relevant informations related to the earliest operating systems, see this article.

~ by millosh on December 16, 2008.

Posted in General Motors, history of computing, operating systems