It was really strange how QNX had a full multitasking GUI operating system for I...

bzzzt · on Oct 15, 2023

By the time that demo floppy was release (1999) Microsoft already had become the 'default PC OS'. Also, Microsoft had Windows _and_ Office, server software to network a company (NT) and for home users about all the PC games they could dream of. QNX had a very impressive demo, but never really had a chance of competing, otherwise they would have lost from free Linux distributions that had more software at the time.

fuzztester · on Oct 15, 2023

Yes. I had tried it out, for a while, many years ago, at a time when Linux distros fitted on CDs, not DVDs.

Installed it off a CD that came with PC Quest Magazine, onto a partition on my PC.

QNX was really fast, not just compared to Windows, but even compared to Linuxes of the time.

jonhohle · on Oct 15, 2023

It even had reasonable device support (what I cared about worked) and a web browser. I’m sad that they dropped Nutrino, but am glad it existed.

bregma · on Oct 15, 2023

Neutrino still exists and it's running your car. In fact you can still buy it for home use. It's just not Free. Or "free" as in Windows.

fuzztester · on Oct 22, 2023

Neutrino, I guess. Cool. And I think the GUI module (for lack of a more appropriate word, subsystem, maybe) was called Photon.

bluedino · on Oct 15, 2023

They didn't have any software and didn't emulate dos or windows

Why would anyone run it