In the Beginning was the Command Line (1999)
20 comments
·December 8, 2025nullbyte808
"Even the hardware that Windows ran on, when compared to the machines put out by Apple, looked like white-trash stuff, and still mostly does."
Still true 25 years later!
PotatoPancakes
Is this the origin of the classic analogy that Windows is a station wagon, Mac OS is a European luxury sedan, and Linux is a free tank? I had no idea that the author Neal Stephenson came up with that.
The analogy is definitely a bit outdated now, what with Windows 8 then 10 then 11 getting aggressively less user-friendly each year.
kragen
Is Microsoft Windows more like a Ford Pinto with an exploding gas tank, a Lada, or what? I can't think of any car that's ever been sold whose design was optimized to spy on its users and trick them into buying to things and agreeing to contracts they didn't want.
The Takata airbags that inflated at random, killing 26 people, seem similarly harmful (if to a far smaller number of people), but that's an unintentional defect. Unlike the recent Windows 11 screw-tightening, Takata responded by recalling the product, not making it explode more frequently.
JoshTriplett
> I can't think of any car that's ever been sold whose design was optimized to spy on its users and trick them into buying to things and agreeing to contracts they didn't want.
I've ridden in people's cars that are still displaying "agree to the terms of service"; I think a number of cars are starting to become far too much like computers.
irishcoffee
Apple is a shitty 3-series BMW, windows is a used Lexus that’s been in 3 accidents, and Linux is a 25 year old f250 that’s been a farm truck its whole life.
nullbyte808
I'd say Apple is a 50's CHEVROLET CORVETTE. Breaks down less than Windows and has less intrusive technology (like ads, AI, ect.)
bacchusracine
Don’t forget about the BeOS being the Batmobile!
zubairq
Great stuff. I always love technical fluff about the history and philiosophy of operating systems
homarp
gnabgib
It's an HN favourite, that's just 2024, there's also:
2020 (179 points, 64 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24998305
2019 (148 points, 50 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20684764
2018 (102 points, 13 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16843739
2016 (145 points, 55 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12469797
2008 (24 points, 12 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=408226
dang
Thanks! Macroexpanded:
In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41084795 - July 2024 (260 comments)
In the Beginning was the Command Line (1999) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37314225 - Aug 2023 (2 comments)
In the Beginning Was the Command Line - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29373944 - Nov 2021 (4 comments)
In the Beginning was the Command Line (1999) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24998305 - Nov 2020 (64 comments)
In the beginning was the command line (1999) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20684764 - Aug 2019 (50 comments)
In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16843739 - April 2018 (13 comments)
In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12469797 - Sept 2016 (54 comments)
In the beginning was the command line - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11385647 - March 2016 (1 comment)
In the Beginning was the Command Line, by Neal Stephenson - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=408226 - Dec 2008 (12 comments)
In the beginning was the command line by Neil Stephenson - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=95912 - Jan 2008 (5 comments)
In the Beginning Was the Command Line - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47566 - Aug 2007 (2 comments)
(Reposts are fine after a year or so, and in the case of perennials like this one, it's good to have a thread every once in a while so newer user cohorts learn what the classics are.)
themafia
> Bill Gates and Paul Allen came up with an idea even stranger and more fantastical: selling computer operating systems.
Please. They resold an already existing OS created by another individual. The idea that there was some "vision" here in being an IBM contractor is a total misunderstanding of the history of the time.
Nevermark
The “strange” products they created to sell for money, were implementations of programming languages. When most software was (1) supplied by the large company that sold the large computer it ran on, (2) was written on one of those machines by the people who were going to use it, or (3) was hobby stuff, shared freely between hobbyists.
The latter made sense, since taking and giving back to the community was a natural and fair system. Which served everyone, while obligating no one. And in any case, how would you charge for something with no physical form and that anyone can copy?
ssrc
Arguably this started in the mainframe world in 1969, with IBM "unbundling" software and services from hardware sales, after the US government launched an antitrust suit against them.
homarp
I understand this part to be more about the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists
irishcoffee
> Please. They resold an already existing OS created by another individual. The idea that there was some "vision" here in being an IBM contractor is a total misunderstanding of the history of the time.
Imagine how different the world might be if gates’ mom didn’t work at ibm.
zabzonk
she didn't. she was on a united way charity comittee with an ibm executive
irishcoffee
Potato, po-tato?
null
"The cosmic operating system uses a command-line interface."
"Now THAT is a cool operating system, and if such a thing were actually made available on the Internet (for free, of course) every hacker in the world would download it right away and then stay up all night long messing with it, spitting out universes right and left."
At the same time, there will be uncool operating systems designed for data collection, surveillance and ad services