We post alt history timeline ITT and discuss how the world would change by it. One important rule is you have to explain how such a scenario is possible and just say shit like "WhaT iF the AmIGa BEaT ThE PC As tHE DoMAnAnt pLaTFoRm!"I'll start, what if starting in 1997 DEC bought out SGI, Novell, SCO and the rights for Research UNIX from Lucent Technology, joined Project Monterey through the SCO purchase, sold the rights to MIPS, which they acquired from the SGI sale, to Intel instead of selling StrongARM and didn't go through with the Compaq buyout.At the same time, not far away what if in the late 90s Apple bought out Exponential Technology/Intrinsity and Quantum Effect Devices in response to the G4 400MHz speed dump, bought out Bungie when they had the chance, bought Aureal Semiconductor and later Sensaura before Creative and potentially also bought Hasbro Interactive and Interplay when they were wounded in the early 2000s.Lastly what if BeOS was chosen by Motorola as the replacement for Mac OS when Apple closed the clone market and they successfully managed to get IBM to license components from the ill fated Workplace OS aka OS/2 for PowerPC, bought out the rights both the Atari and Amiga from JT Storage, Haage & Partner and Hyperion Entertainment or anyone else that owns pieces.
I also do this to cope. idk as much about 90s tech company history to explain in great detail so I'll break the rule.What if there was a third option between Apple and Windows? For me I wish SONY had an exclusive OS for Vaio to go with the Xperia and Playstation.
>>109063293Well Apple did try to liscense OS X to Sony in the late 90s, early 2000s. Would have been cool if it formed a partnership that extended to the PS3, especially since both would have ran a BSD based OS on PowerPC.Also that 3rd option would have been the line about BeOS.
>>109063315Yeah it does almost seem like SONY/Apple is a good combo.
What if microsoft didn't jew out and force oems to use windows by making it so they ether shipped windows or lost their license permanently, also what if corel linux was more successful
>>109063395that's not possible, jewing out is second nature to microsoft hence why they're #1 in market share. you don't succeed by not being greedy.
>>109063293>>109063395I like to think of a world where a Sony Ecosystem replaces Apple, as the setup of choice for people in the arts/media.>Vaio desktops instead of macs>Walkmans instead of iPods >Sony's UMPCs set the pocket computing standard instead smartphones>All Vaio desktops and laptops come with minidisc drives so minidiscs are still viable for much longer>Apple Studio displays are replaced with flat-panel successors to the Sony PVM/BVM line>Windows is no longer the default gaming OS, because Sony has PC gaming now too, and gives cross compatibility and dev tools for PlayStations>Tech design now follows Sony's cool Y2k-futurism instead of soulless Dieter Rams design that Jony Ive pushed through Apple>Sony software like Sony Vegas and SoundForge become industry standards
>>109063628>>Windows is no longer the default gaming OS, because Sony has PC gaming now too, and gives cross compatibility and dev tools for PlayStationsWhat would their pcs run on though?
>>109063628That's what I'm saying. Even to this day it seems like SONY isn't fond of the soulless designs we have for everything, they're just forced to concede because that's how the industry is.>>109063659Probably a desktop variant of Orbis, it would be like MacOS but less gay.
>>109063173Aesthetic picture.The old mac pro and MacOS (Snow) Leopard were incredibly good looking.
>>109063717>OrbisThat makes sense altough i think the version of Orbis of that universe would maybe be based on NEWS? since sony would have a incentive to have a operating system much earlier
>>109063659Probably something Linux-based as Sony has a history of Linux support. Both the PS2 and PS3 supported Linux officially.Theyd probably make their OS a very specialized and locked down version of Linux by default though, similar perhaps to what Google did to android or chromeos.
>>109063173I'm still bummed out that IBM went with Bill Gates and DOS instead of Gary Kildall and CP/M-86.As for the repercussions, we wouldn't be dealing with Windows 11 now and the world would have been a much better place.
>>109063751>>109063717/r/equesing a concept of a version of orbis for pee cee
I can come up with a scenario where the MSX wins.It does require two very important components, one is that either ZiLOG don't get fucked by exxon, or they choose the 8088 as the original MSX CPU, and it also requires that commodore fucks up a bit more, and the machine is successful in the US.With these two factors out of the way, The MSX functions basically like the PC Clones (anyone can manufacture em, they're all inter-compatible), and there's no need to just clone the IBM PC, that would be relegated as "the weird office machine" due it's absurd price.It had the best idea, but the worst luck.Also it would need that the MSX2 had a 16bit CPU (either some frederico faggin ZiLOG baby, or a 80286).In reality that probably wouldn't end up changing much the end result of what we got, except external cartridge ports that are used to install hardware would be quite more popular, and things like hardware addressing would be way better.
>>109063628>>109063717>>109063751see >>109063315unironically a Sony Apple partnership similar to the Sony SGI partnership in the 90s would have been based and maybe OS X would have actually been given bluray integration instead of fucking around.
https://os-marketshare.neocities.org/
>>109063315The third alternative definitely would have been BeOS and Bebox if things went a bit differently and Microsoft didn't fuck them over.After they gave up on Bebox and ported BeOS to x86, Be Inc. also fucked themselves over by being too greedy. BeOS x86 should have been freeware for personal use since the beginning and give better support for developers, it could have taken over Linux as a desktop alternative for Windows then.
>>109065709but what about my 3rd scenerio at the top? liscense BeOS to the displaced Mac cloners after Apple kills the program, convince IBM to license the source to OS/2 for PowerPC and buy the remains of Atari and Amiga to bootstrap a userbase? basically turn 16-bit Windows, DOS, Amiga OS and TOS into what the classic environment on OS X is and use BeOS' native APIs and perhaps the OS/2 APIs liscensed from IBM as the native APIs.
>>109063293>>109063659Just make Sony don't fuck their NEWS platform as hard as they did in this timeline.
>>109065966Unix workstations were dying in the late 90s early 2000s partly due to royalty fees, apple was smart since NeXTSTEP was already a partly BSD based OS and they just replaced the proprietary Unix components with parts from Free, Open and NetBSD so no more royalties to Novell/SCO.
What's the earliest year an alternate timeline Diablo 1 could have existed if it had been programmed by elite assembly programmers? Assume the graphics were reduced to 320×200 256 colors VGA, and all the sound data was loaded into RAM instead of streaming from a CD. Could a heavily optimized ASM version run about as well on a 386 as the original timeline Diablo 1? Or would hardware limitations like ISA bus speed make that impossible? Would a 386 have enough processing power to handle Diablo's game loop computation?I asked chatgpt and it answered 1992-1993. What do we (human and non-AI) think about ChatGPT's answer?> ChatGPTA rough estimate:1990 Probably impossible in commercial form. Too little RAM, storage, and installed hardware base.1991 Technically possible on high-end 386 systems, but very niche.1992 Quite plausible with compromises.1993 Highly plausible.1994 Very realistic.My estimate is that the earliest believable alternate-timeline "Diablo" is around 1992–1993, not because the CPU couldn't handle the game loop, but because RAM capacity, asset storage, and market hardware expectations become much less restrictive by that point. A team of exceptional assembly programmers could likely have produced a recognizably Diablo-like game several years before the real Diablo shipped.
Why talk about the past, why can't we make a new operating system right now and have it take over Windows in the future?
>>109064164>https://os-marketshare.neocities.org/>BeOS: 8% (+3)There is no possible chance that BeOS has gained 3%.That shit has been dead since before the majority of anons on this site in current year were born.
>>109063173>Oh my Sn0y!>m68k!>PowerPC>ARM!>In the alternate MCU Universe we beat x64!The lengths some people will go....
>>109063758>I'm still bummed out that IBM went with Bill Gates and DOS instead of Gary Kildall and CP/M-86.I don't know why people think IBM dealing with Gary would have been better than Bill. CP/M was not really better than DOS, and even if it was, IBM still did a lot of changes to the original 86-DOS that Gary wouldn't have approved the same changes to his CP/M and the deal would have been broken, anyway.
>>109063315>>109065709>>109065919If you want to make BeOS the third or even second OS besides Windows, just make Jean-Louis Gassée accepts becoming the CEO of Apple after Gil Amelio instead of Steve Jobs.The execs at Apple actually called him first with the intention of buying his company (Be Inc.) and made him CEO, but he wanted more money, so they chose Jobs instead.
>>109067647China and Europe is already doing this, and given all the enshitification I hope they succeed.
>>109070751>China and EuropeThey will just use some linux distro and call it a day.
>>109070765It's not just a Linux distro, they're making their own processor architecture and graphics cards now.
>>109068620By "BeOS" they probably are counting Haiku as well, but yeah, those numbers are fucking bonkers.
>>109068677uh oh, melty!
>>109063173The Amiga fandom choosing one OS instead of atomizing into countless descendants would have helped the ecosystem a lot, imho.
>>109072537see >>109065919would have been a bit of a long shot but just maybe BeOS could have become the ad hoc successor to OS/2, Atari TOS and Amiga OS on PowerPC.
>>109063173>like "WhaT iF the AmIGa BEaT ThE PC As tHE DoMAnAnt pLaTFoRm!"it was for a number of years and street shitting apple fans have never recovered. they never recovered after commodore absolutely fucking destroyed the apple 2 and apple 2e, with the c64 becoming the best selling computer of all time>what if>it's just a muddled up bunch of schizophrenia, but apple is the beneficiarymy sides. please stop. i can't laugh any longer.
>>109072537>>109072939>when you have absolutely no idea how the amiga or operating systems work, just keep seething and coping and maybe someone will join in with your embarrassing conversationno thanks.
I wonder what would have happened if Japan stick to their guns and actually made TRON their main national OS.By this point Japan's tech and internet culture would be even more alien than what they are today. And who knows? Maybe other neighbors would have adopted TRON instead of Windows like it happened in this timeline.
What if third worlders like me never had access to the internet
>>109074858Utopia
>>109063173I can't stand these ARGfags man.You're all children, probably literally and definitely mentally.Grow up. You will someday.
>>109074858What's third world mean. Jeet?
bump for good thread
>>109063888Based MSX enjoyer. I always felt like the MSX had a good alternative to the IBM PC compatible because it was so easy to make compatible between all MSX models.
What if Sony and Nintendo added phone functionality and a sim card to the PSP and Nintendo DS in the early 2000s instead of the iPhones we got.Would the tech industry be in Tokyo instead of San Francisco? Would modern "smartphones" still have a big game focus and audience, including game exclusives that would only release on specific phone brands?I distinctly remember everyone having a PSP and it being used as a multimedia device in college. It was exactly used like people use a smartphone nowadays and I constantly think about this "what if" scenario.
>>109063173Blue LED is never invented; the famous japanese guy is fired for wasting company money for years before he finishes.CRTs remain the dominant form of screen. They continue to get somewhat smaller and thinner but remain extremely heavy. Honestly it'd be a paradise.>No smart shit screens plastered in your car and on the street and in your fridge and gas pump>No fully fleshed out smartphones
>>109076398>CRTs remain the dominant form of screenI think we would have skipped straight to OLED. OLED colors are produced entirely differently than LED, and even if we lost 10-20 years on it, the people and the industry were demanding more lightweight displays to use in their devices.
>>109063173I actually have thought about 3 what-ifs. They are more /v/ related, but whatever, they are tech that could have changed our lives forever.What if VR tech got adopted way earlier, like if the Nintendo Virtual Boy was not a massive flop or it had better hardware or if another company like Sega or Sony actually got in the hype and released their own headsets and kicksarted a VR war of sorts,so the tech became popular and a common thing in the 2000s.What if the Vectrex console was a massive success and the company actually released the prototype they had as a Vectrex 2, which was a color version of the first version with some revisions, kickstarting a graphic revolution and vector-based consoles became popular, competing directly with the pixel-based consoles everybody knows now.What if Sega of America's Black Belt project won over Sega of Japan's Katana and the Dreamcast we got was a PowerPC machine with a Voodoo GPU instead of the Hitachi CPU and PowerVR GPU we got.
>>109063293>For me I wish SONY had an exclusive OS for Vaio to go with the Xperia and Playstation.hell yeah
they took this from you
>>109081083You will never be japanese
>>109067377>What's the earliest year an alternate timeline Diablo 1Just make John Carmack more interested on ARPG games than FPS.
>>109067647Yeah, but that's not the point of this thread.
