IBM PC compatibles account for more than half of all
computers on the Internet. Macintoshes come in second,
with about 10, which is about what we would have
expected.
Hardware on the Internet
IBM PC type 54.2
Macintoshes 10.4
other PC type 9.4
workstations 8.6
diskless bitmap workstations 6.0
routers 1.2
minicomputers 1.1
fileservers 0.8
bridges 0.8
mainframes 0.1
supercomputers 0.0
other hardware 7.4
Operating system
----------------
MS-Windows is the most popular operating system on the
Internet, followed by MS-DOS alone, MacOS, and UNIX. This
is the order of usage of these operating systems in the
world at large, so it is what we expected.
All the other operating systems appear in tiny
proportions. Windows/NT still hasn't taken over the world
and shows no sign of doing so; it comes in behind VMS, and
not far ahead of CMS. OS/2 appears to be showing some
increased share since the previous year.
Operating systems on the Internet
MS-Windows 51.0
MS-DOS alone 17.5
MacOS 13.8
UNIX 12.7
OS/2 1.2
VMS 0.9
Windows/NT 0.5
router OS 0.3
CMS 0.0
other OS 2.1
Of course, it may be true that a majority of the *people* on the
Internet use UNIX, since there are probably many PCs running DOS which
only have one user, while each UNIX computer probably has many users.
It's hard to know.
It might be better not to make sweeping generalisations one way or the
other...
Anyway, I've looked through GMD to see how portable a few systems are.
I've chosen what I think are the most popular systems. Here's a
summary:
TADS: Source not available.
Binaries for Amiga, NeXT, Atari ST, DEC Mips, MS-DOS,
Linux/386, Macintosh, SGI Irix, Solaris, SunOS,
Sun 3, OS/2.
Inform: Compiler and interpreter C source available.
Compiler binaries for Amiga, Macintosh, Archimedes, Atari ST,
MS-DOS, OS/2.
Interpreter binaries for Apple II, Archimedes, Atari ST, OS/2,
Amiga, Macintosh, MS-DOS, MS-Windows,
Psion series3.
Linux and UNIX/X11 C source code.
Build your own if you have a C compiler.
AGT: Compiler and interpreter Turbo Pascal source available.
Binaries for MS-DOS, MS-Windows, Amiga, Atari ST.
Build your own if you have a Turbo-like Pascal compiler.
AdvSys: Compiler and interpreter C source available.
Binaries available for MS-DOS, Macintosh.
I've seen ports for other machines, but they are not available
from GMD, it seems.
Build your own if you have a C compiler.
Alan: Source not available.
Binaries for Amiga, HP/UX, Macintosh, MS-DOS, Sun, VMS.
My opinions on this: Inform and AdvSys are the most portable, followed
by AGT, and the others aren't portable (well, not by the user). TADS
is the most widely ported, followed closely by Inform, then Alan, AGT
and AdvSys. If you consider (as I do) that C source code is
(practically) as good as a binary for most UNIX systems, then Inform is
the most widely ported.
Hopefully this will help some people decide which system they are
going to use.
--Charles