[geeks] The greatest piece of software ever written...

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: "Geoffrey S. Mendelson" <gsm at mendelson.com>
>Date: 2006/08/16 Wed AM 07:54:22 CDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] The greatest piece of software ever written...

>On Wed, Aug 16, 2006 at 07:33:37AM -0500, Lionel Peterson wrote:
>
>> "The single Greatest Piece of Software Ever"
>
>Sorry, IMHO it would have to be windows. The original late 1960's windowing
>system (hence the lower case W) that was picked up by Xerox PARC.
>
>It the basis for the user interface for almost every computer system now in
>use.

Listed in the almost-ran column as "Sketchpad":

"In January 1963, MIT student Ivan Edward Sutherland submitted a PhD thesis titled, "Sketchpad: A Man Machine Graphical Communication System." The ideas in "Sketchpad" and the resulting Sketchpad software program were so far ahead of their time that they laid the groundwork for a revolution that continues 43 years later. The Sketchpad concepts lead straight to the graphical user interface now manifest in Windows and the Apple Macintosh."

URL: http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2006/08/the_greatest_so.html

(Five that didn't make the list)

>As for BSD 4.3, most of it's "inovations" were already running on IBM operating
>systems some as early as the late 1960's.

IBM OS 360 was #4, and was the home for most of the innovations you cite...

Dare I point out the list is subjective?

Lionel