作業系統（operating system）

閱讀筆記：

• Technology Review: An Operating System for the Cloud: "IBM's 360 mainframe was the first computer to gain widespread acceptance in business, and the popularity of the machine, first sold in 1965, depended as much on its software as its hardware. When IBM used Microsoft's DOS as the operating system for its first PC, introduced in 1981, it was the first time Big Blue had gone outside its own walls for a central piece of code. Soon, technologists (including, belatedly, IBM) realized that control of the OS had given Microsoft control of the PC. IBM tried and failed to regain that control with a program called OS/2. But Microsoft triumphed with Windows in the 1990s--and became the most profitable company on earth, turning Gates into the world's richest person. Thus, the OS came to be viewed as the ultimate technological product, a platform seemingly protean enough to incorporate and control every future software innovation and at the same time robust enough to drag outdated PC machines and programs into the present." IBM利用微軟的DOS作為1981年上市的第一台個人電腦的作業系統，是大藍首次借重外面的核心程式碼。不久，技術專家（包括IBM的技術專家很慢才）發現，讓微軟控制作業系統，等於把個人電腦的控制權拱手讓給它。IBM以OS/2程式，試圖奪回控制權卻失敗了。但是微軟1990年代才以Windows大獲勝利，成了世界上最賺錢的公司，蓋茲也搖身而為世界首富。因此，作業系統被視為終極的技術產品。這座平台似乎千變萬化，能夠納入和控制將來每一次的軟體創新，同時又夠強大，能把過時的個人電腦機器和程式拖進現在。