Typically, when you’re thinking about operating systems in the modern day, you’ve got three to consider. Linux, Windows, and MacOS are the main driving forces behind much of desktop and laptop computer hardware these days. However, this wasn’t always the case as you’ll see with the failed operating systems we’re looking at today.
SCO Open Desktop
Before Linux and MacOS, there was Unix. Now, Unix still exists in the modern era, right alongside its successors. However, it wasn’t readily available for most desktop computers until the late 1980s. Unix was the driving force behind much of the development and infrastructure of the early Internet and other wide applications.
As such, it would seem like SCO Open Desktop was a natural fit for home PCs. So, what went wrong with this failed operating system? Open Desktop was well ahead of the curve compared to any contemporary operating system, it offered 32-bit processing and a GUI among other standout features.
It was prone to crashing, and it crashed quite often. Hobbyist software developers were stuck with the Unix installs at their local colleges or just grit their teeth and use MS-DOS. MacOS has shown how powerful Unix can be in a desktop capacity, this is just a case of not being stable enough for everyday use.
JavaOS
Java is the third most popular programming language in the world, behind JavaScript and Python.
Sun Microsystems appears often as almost a Moriaty-styled villain when looking at the computing landscape of yesteryear. In the 1990s, Java was one of Sun’s killer apps so to speak, a portable operating system agnostic programming language seemed like a natural fit for most enterprise applications.
They took this same concept and applied it to an operating system, JavaOS. Releasing originally in 1996, JavaOS was slow, even for the time. Java as a programming language has always been slower than writing in something like C, C++, or Assembly. However, as the driving force behind an operating system, it was just not the right fit.
Oddly, this failed operating system clung to life for well over a decade. This is astounding news to me, considering I remember seeing the press releases for it in grade school and then not a peep afterward.
Lindows
If you ask the average person about Linux, they’ll say it’s just too much for them to handle. Lindows aimed to solve this problem, by providing a more Windows-like experience married with the open-source ethos that drives Linux. However, there were quite a few teething problems this failed operating system encountered.
Lindows was sold on the fact that it could run any Windows application, but the truth was a bit more disappointing. The ones that worked did just fine, but complete compatibility was a pipe dream in 2001 when the operating system was released. A subsequent lawsuit from Microsoft left this failed operating system dead in the water, little more than a footnote.
That said, WINE has come a long way in 23 years and will run a wide array of Windows software just fine.
Windows Vista
Microsoft’s history is littered with failed operating systems, believe it or not. However, few have the same sort of infamy as our next two entries. Windows Vista was intended to be a successor to the beloved Windows XP, launched in 2006.
Anything that could go wrong, went wrong with Vista. It was slow, it was unresponsive, and legacy applications would refuse to run on it. When so much of the business world ran on Windows, having an operating system that just didn’t work out of the box was the death knell for its widespread adoption.
Windows 7 was rushed to market to counteract the outright acrimonious reception of Windows Vista. It remains now as a historical curiosity when looking at the older operating systems released by Microsoft.
Windows Me
I left off quite a few Microsoft failed operating systems when considering this list. However, this one is so infamous it bears mention. Windows Me was intended to be the true successor to Windows 98 SE, which had enjoyed outright dominance of desktop computers in the early 2000s. Windows Me had an identity crisis of sorts, struggling with 16-bit and 32-bit applications alike.
Many of the common complaints aimed at Vista were also true here, with slow and unresponsive performance being one of the top faults with the operating system. The operating system was pulled from shelves after roughly a year on the market, and the better-received XP would become the new norm for the long haul.
Conclusion
Failed operating systems are an interesting what-if when looking at computing. Things could be vastly different, but missteps made it so things simply didn’t line up just right.
The image featured at the top of this post is ©"Unopened boxes of Microsoft Windows Me and Corel WordPerfect 8" by Timo Kuusela is licensed under BY 2.0..