Why did I switch?

This very nice blogger re-opened comments on his post too late, so I had to answer here:

1. When did you switch?
2. Which version of Windows did you switch from?
3. Which OS did you switch to?
4. Why did you switch to your current OS?

1. September 1989

2. Windows 3.11

3. Xenix

4. We could get 12 users on the same 80386 as used to be able to handle just one.

Interesting fact from before Internet Time™: Xenix - Microsoft's version of Unix !

Progressed from Xenix to VMS, AS400, BSD Unix, OS/2, Solaris, RedHat, Mandriva and currently running on a MacBook with OS X (4.1 - reason for current OS: I wanted to try the full set of PC OSes, and someone else was paying.)

Interesting opinion from when the dinosaurs still roamed: AS400 - even worse than DOS ! (Hell's bells it was worse than CP/M. I carried on a career from a CP/M machine, couldn't get an AS400 to say "Hello World")

Most fun you can have with a computer ?
Throwing VAXen down the stairs.
But I'm mumbling again't I?

Never did quite get away from Windows - too many

• students
• customers
• users
• spouses

using it to let me free.

I think the whole question is becoming less relevant (OK, OK, so I'm a web developer and might need to be ahead of the crowd on this but) this laptop allows me to switch OS X -> Windows XP -> Mandriva 2008 with a couple of keys. Each of which then gets me the same network connections and gets me into (woo woo) the cloud.

Whatever the Next Big Thing™ is on all these platforms I can guarantee you

• it will not be an OS
• it'll be here sooner than you think
• probably here already
• the legal term for that guarantee is "null and void"
• whadya want for two cent?