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In the Beginning was the Command Linę

hy Nea] Stephenson 1999

Ahoui (winty years ago Job* and Wozniak. the lounders of Apple, came up wilh the very strange itka of selling inlormalmn processing machłncs for usc tn the hontc. The business look off. and its founders madc u lot of rrtoney and rcccivcd the credit they docrscd lor bcing daring \isionarics. But aruund the same timc. Bill Gate- and Paul Allen came up with an idea cvcn stranger and morę famastical: selling Computer opeiatmg sysiems. Thts was much weirder than tlłc idea ot Jobs and Wozniak. A com-putci at least had simie sort of phyucal rcality to u. li cantc in a box. yiw coukl open il up and pług il iii and watch lighls hlink. An nperating system had no langible incar-milion at all. Il arrived on a disk. of coursc. bul the disk was. in ellcci. nothing more (han ihc hnx that ihc OS came in. The product itsclf was a vcry long string of oncs and /crocs that. when properly installed and coddlcd. gavc you the ability to ntanipulatc other sety long strings of oncs and /crocs. Evcn lhosc fcw w ho actually undcistood what a Computer operating system was were ap< to think of it as a fantastically areane engiitcerins peodtfiy, like a hreeder reactor or a IJ-2 mw piane, and not sometliing that