Quiz - Operating Systems

1. Microsoft code-names. Blink.nu: Code names, phm.lu: Windows codenames and Bitsenbytes.com forum all have a good collection of code-names related to Windows OS and other Microsoft products.
2. Microsoft Product Code-Names

   Code-name	Final Name	Comments
   Lonestar	Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005	OS for Microsoft Tablet PC
   Whidbey	Visual Studio 2005	Will ship with Longhorn

3. Whistler was the code name for Windows XP. XP stands for eXPerience. XP shared the Whistler code-name with Windows 2003 Server.
4. History of DOS gives a brief timeline of MS-DOS with features. There was also a MS-DOS 4.0, which (and not OS/2) was Microsoft's first non-Unix multitasking operating system.
5. Longhorn: Microsoft's upcoming version of Windows XP, which features a new 3D user interface code-named Avalon, security based on Palladium and a database code-named Yukon and based on SQL Server 2003. The name comes from the name of a saloon at the foot of the Whistler mountain. Whistler was the code-name for Windows XP. Links: Windows "Longhorn" FAQ, which will tell you all that you want to know about Longhorn.
6. Longhorn code names: Longhorn is the code-name for the next release of Windows. Here are some code-names related to Longhorn. Avalon is the code name for the graphics presentation technologies in Longhorn; ClickOnce is the technology in Longhorn designed to speed and simplify deployment of applications; Indigo is the .NET communications technologies; SuperFetch is the technology designed to help applications launch more quickly; Whidbey is the next generation of the Microsoft Visual Studio system of software-development tools; WinFS is the search and data storage system that provides a unified storage model for applications running on Longhorn; WinFXTM is the programming model for applications in Longhorn and Yukon is the next generation of Microsoft SQL Server database software on which the Longhorn file-system is expected to be based. Lot of code-names there! Links: See sidebox in this Microsoft PressPass.
7. Linux: The Linux kernel, which was written by Linus Torwalds in 1991, and the GNU software together makes the Linux OS, more correctly called the GNU/Linux system. Linus first announced his new OS, then unnamed, on August 25, 1991. The name Linux was coined by Ari Lemmke, who first made GNU/Linux available for download using FTP. [Links: History of Linux; linux.org]
8. Windows for Mobile: Windows CE (CE for Consumer Electronics) has roots in the Pegasus project at Microsoft. WinCE began to be called Pocket PC OS, when Microsoft came out with their own mobile device which was named Pocket PC. The latest version of WinCE is called Windows Mobile 2003 (code-named Ozone) was released on June 23, 2003. Links: Microsoft Windows Mobile Home Page, A personal look at Windows CE's history by Jason Dunn, History of Windows at the PCMuseum.
9. Blackcomb: Next release of Windows Server 2003, expected after 2005. Blackcomb will be preceded by a version of Windows XP called Longhorn.
10. UNIX: developed by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie at AT&T Bell Labs on a PDP-7 machine in 1969. It was first called UNICS (UNIplexed operating and Computing System), a pun on its predecessor MULTICS (MULTiplexed Information and Computing Service).
11. Puma: The code name for Mac OS X 10.1.
12. Windows NT was the first network operating system from Microsoft. NT stands for New Technology. Its successor Windows 2000 (NT version 5.0) was launched on February 17, 2000.
13. Linux was started in 1992 by Linus Torwalds, a Swedish hacker.
14. Warp is a version of OS/2, IBM's operating system.
15. Windows 3.0 was announced in 1983 and it was finally released in 1990. Windows 3.1 was released in 1992.
16. 'Project Chicago' was the code name for Windows 95 development.
17. Windows 1.0 was shipped in 1985.
18. Novel Netware, the network OS, was first released as 'Sharenet' in 1981.
19. The first two letters in any EXE program that runs on DOS, OS2 or Windows NT are "MZ". These are the initials of a Mark Zbikowski, a Microsoft programmer.
20. Gary Kindall wrote CP/M (Control Program/Monitor) in 1974. His company Intergalactic became Digital Research in 1976.
21. GNU was developed by the Free Software Foundation started by Richard Stallman.
22. Windows 95 was released on August 24, 1995.
23. The concept of desktop was introduced in the Apple Macintosh.
24. The X11 GUI library for UNIX was developed at MIT.
25. Tim Patterson is associated with QDOS, owned by Seattle Computer Products. Microsoft purchased the rights to QDOS for $50,000 and renamed it as PCDOS 1.0. The first IBM PC, the ACORN, was released with PCDOS 1.0 on August 12, 1982.
26. ntoskrnl.exe is the core file for the Windows NT Kernel.