I found the following video via The Consumerist (an excellent blog on consumer-related issues BTW) and had to share.
If you take the time to watch, you'll notice that there is absolutely no problem upgrading from MS DOS 5 (released Summer 1991) all the way through to Vista (though the author takes umbrage with the fact that later OSes don't migrate the color scheme).
While I find this technically interesting, there is one note the author makes that caused me to pause: Certain DOS and early Windows programs were still functional, even 20 years later while running these new operating systems. Backward compatibility is great, don't get me wrong, but could this be part of the reason that Windows continues to look out-dated, bloated, and has not moved forward much since Windows XP (which was released in 2001)? The original Longhorn version of Windows Vista was slated to be an amazing, forward-thinking OS (go back and look at the old developer videos from 2004 if you don't believe me), but it was scrapped along the way, and we got what we know as today's Vista instead. Windows 7 is a slight step forward, forcing some older software to run in emulation instead of natively within the OS.
At some point, Microsoft is going to have to bite the bullet, just like Apple had to with OS X, and move forward. So while the following video is impressive, don't forget to shed a tear for innovation as you watch.
- Hutch
