The infamous no-hope error message that Microsoft built into Windows. every operating system has its equivalent. Unix has the kernel panic and mac has the screen go grey with a message in the middle.

Window BSOD probably gained notoriety because early versions of windows combined with the plethora of flakey third-party hardware resulted in it being too much of a regular and jarring occurrence. Suddenly transitioning to a bright blue screen full of numbers could be quite a shock.

Apples BSOD is a bit of a misnomer, since it wasn’t a low-level panic condition telling you that you needed to reboot but instead was the operating system hanging on a blue screen (that is normally visible at that point anyway) due to a faulty component crashing the boot procedure.

Apple did what Linux failed to do. Delivered a usable and popular desktop operating system based on Unix.

OS X (Mac Operating system V10) replaced the Mac Classic operating system in the first of a couple of transitioning moves (the next MAJOR step was moving to Intel). It was brave, and it worked. The monolithic OS 9 was totally replaced, in every aspect. The core bits, memory management, disk management, IO, etc. were replaced by BSD Unix. The GUI was replaced with bits NeXt OS, and Apple moved everything forward in leaps and bounds while still offering a transition period for older software (which they didn’t do for Apple II software, to their great cost).

Leopard is OS 10.5 and all the pain of the OS X and Intel migrations is now behind Apple, and has proven to be the right decision.

A generic term for a series of Microsoft operating systems. Windows has come to dominate the desktop. These days, I see Windows in two main contexts. One is a platform for development of commercial applications in a corporate setting, this world is fairly committed to Windows for a number of reasons which are fairly solid and unshakeable for now.

The other is home users. My exposure here is supporting friends and neighbours, and viewing this world I see Windows as more and more of a handicapped lumbering monstrosity that stops people from doing what they want by making things too complex and too unreliable. It is a spoilt, bastard child – “in your face”, either saying “look at me, I’m here” when you just want it to do it’s stuff, quietly and efficiently or it’s throwing a tantrum, stamping it’s feet saying “Nope, I won’t, nope, go away”, and then sulking in a corner refusing to help.

To this world, I am increasingly saying you don’t need the hassle, go get something that just does email, allows you to browse the web, can organise your photos and do some home video. Get a Mac. Games? Get a Wii (or maybe a PS3).