If there is something good about having lived a few years, it is that you can remember how things were before. In addition, you can bore the youngest with your stories as our elders did with us.
When I was born, televisions were black and white and only received over-the-air channels. Family events were recorded in films or photos that had to be developed and video games were indivisible from the machine that ran them.
By the time I got my first computer, the first graphical interface operating systems began to appear. Accustomed to those of today, their windows and icons can seem crude. But, considering the hardware resources of the time, they were wonderful.
As well as in another article I proposed you to try new operating systems, in this I propose to travel to the past and try some that made history. In this case, you don't need to install them. Thanks to the magic of HTML5 and Javascript, you can do it from the browser.
Test historical operating systems on these websites
PC DOS
It's probably one of the most unfortunate decisions in the history of the computer industry. IBM decided to outsource the production of the critical components of its line of desktop computers. It probably had to do with how used to big teams, she didn't think something so small was worth it. Although, the official explanation in the case of the operating system is that they wanted to avoid patent trolls.
The point is, he commissioned it from Microsoft and we already know the results. 4 decades later, IBM no longer makes desktop computers and ended up buying Red Hat to be competitive in the cloud.
En this page we can try one of the latest versions of the operating system developed by Microsoft for IBM and dates from the early 90s. The emulation includes three games of the decade; Wolfenstein 3D, Civilization, and Monkey Island.
Windows 95
This operating system was the gateway in the 90s for most people who had not had contact with computers before. MS-DOS was no longer relied upon for disk and file access and the foundations of the appearance were laid that Windows had until the release of version 8.
En this page you can try it, but you will have to wait a bit because the startup is a bit slow. Keep in mind that the page takes control of the pointer for use within Windows. You can return to normal by pressing ESC.
Mac OS System 7
It was the 80s and Apple decided that it needed to professionalize its management. For that, he brought in none other than a former Pepsi executive, John Sculley. Perhaps the most relevant thing about Sculley's stint at Apple was firing Steve Jobs and writing a book on the subject before he was fired. While they were together, they released the first Macintosh models. In this emulator, we will see a monitor in which we can try some applications from the early days of Apple.
Windows XP
Did you see those horror movies where the monster never finishes dying? Well, its computer equivalent was Windows XP and its inseparable file browser / explorer Internet Explorer 6. Although it was one of Microsoft's greatest successes, it ended up being its worst nightmare, since customers saw no reason to downgrade windows operating system
In its 10 years of existence, Windows XP saw Yahoo go under and Google take the lead. He went from diskettes to cd and saw how the pendrive began to insinuate itself as the main storage medium.
En this page you can test it in full screen.
What about Linux?
I must confess that I was not able to find web pages that emulate old Linux distributions. But, in the Ibiblio digital file, you can find old images of some of the more traditional Linux distributions to test in a virtual machine.
What times compadre, I remember Windows 3.11 for group work, ufff and not to mention the programs, work, q4pro, if the memory does not fail me. Do you remember how many floppy disks you had to use? Greetings very good article.
Yes, and sometimes the last one failed you