alt Hacker NewsWindows as a product feels that way, but I think if you're a kernel hacker, that's not really true for you. Monolithic kernels for Unix-like operating systems like GNU/Linux aren't fundamentally that innovative either. (There's innovation within Linux, of course.)
I also don't really think computing advances in such a linear way. Lots of cool new tech is about digging up underappreciated insights from computing's distant past and applying it in a new context, or even just propagating it more widely.
I'm not saying Windows 9x in particular had anything super interesting going on. But all of the viable desktop and server operating systems are based on really old tech, and at the same time computing's distant past is full of hidden treasures.
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> I'm not saying Windows 9x in particular had anything super interesting going on.
Win9X and the VxD layer was a neat virtualization system running in a very resource-constrained environment with a lot of backwards compatibility requirements.
> I'm not saying Windows 9x in particular had anything super interesting going on.
Oh it did though, it is a very interesting OS. Much more interesting than it usually gets credit for.
It's a proper 32 bit OS with pre-emptive multitasking and demand paging that is enough of a chimera with DOS that it still supports DOS programs, 16 bit Windows apps, and even your old DOS drivers - side-by-side with all the new 32 bit stuff.