I've been fortunate enough to use a number of different operating systems both at home and at work. Some of them I use out of necessity (my employer either requires their use or makes them very difficult to avoid using), while others are OSes that I've chosen to use either at home or at work for various reasons.

The main operating systems I used at my last contract site are as follows:

• MCP -- this is the Unisys mainframe operating system which is used on both the current "Clearpath NX" server line and on the older Unisys A-series family. It's derived from the Burroughs A-series MCP. I accessed the mainframe system using a T27 emulator called CTCBridge.

• Windows XP Professional -- this is the OS that I used as my desktop operating system. I also used the full compliment of Windows office software here including Word, Excel, IE, and Outlook.

When I worked at NWA, the main operating systems I used were as follows:

• OS2200 -- this was the operating system for the Unisys mainframes on which I wrote code at NWA.  I've used it in some form since college in the fall of 1981. Descended from the UNIVAC EXEC 8 and Sperry UNIVAC OS1100 operating systems, and the same OS that is used on the current Unisys "Clearpath IX" server family.

• VM and OS/390 -- operating systems for the IBM mainframes which housed our change/problem management system (InfoMan accessed via TSO) and our time-reporting system (PCS, accessed via CICS). Our old PROFS system (well, OV) runs under VM.

• MacOS 8.1 -- my main workstation was a PowerMac 7200/120 running this level of the MacOS, and I used terminal emulation software on it to access the Unisys and IBM mainframes (QTerm and MacIrma respectively).

• Windows NT 4.0 -- my secondary workstation was a PII/300 Windows box, and I used it to do more mundane things things like word processing and accessing files on the corporate fileservers.

• Solaris -- Sun UNIX version that I dabbled in briefly at work, and which I use all the time when I telnet to my ISP to use shell utilities like slrn, links, and Pine from work.

At home, the main operating systems I use are as follows:

• OS/2 Warp 4 (a 32-bit OS created by IBM. I've used this as my primary "desktop" operating system since the spring of 1993 when OS/2 2.1 was released. If you're curious about why I still use it, feel free to ask me why).

• eComStation 1.0, a new variation of OS/2 that is being marketed by a third party called Serenity Systems. Right now it's basically an OS/2 distribution with some additional features and software packages.

• Linux (a free UNIX workalike. I've played with a number of distributions, starting with SLS 1.01 back in late 1992, and including various flavors of Slackware, Red Hat, SuSE, and Mandrake. At this point I've chosen the floppy-based Coyote Linux for firewall use, an old reliable Red Hat 5.1 installation for my file server, and Mandrake 6.1 as my desktop Linux).

• Windows NT 4.0 (I used this to dial into work at NWA via RAS).

• Windows 95 OSR2 (my primary OS for playing games!).

• BeOS 5.0 Professional (my main "playaround" desktop operating system).

I also have a few other operating systems installed here that I play with from time to time. Right now, the main two are Solaris 7 for Intel and FreeBSD 3.3. QNXRtp is on my radar, though, and will be installed soon.

To see some screen snapshots of some of my PC desktops, check this out!

To see some fairly current pictures of my favorite desktop OS (OS/2 Warp 4), check this out as well.