The Restart Page

January 6, 2012 11:05 PM

Watch your favorite operating systems reboot at The Restart Page.
posted by Foci for Analysis (65 comments total)

Those all restart way faster than any of my machines ever did. I mean, it usually takes me half an hour after I push "restart" for the machine to actually close all the neglected windows that I have been accumulating over weeks.

This is so cool.
posted by Barry B. Palindromer at 11:12 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]

I don't see BeOS...
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 11:14 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]

Excellent job including Neutrino, which was my system-on-a-3.5" floppy before bootable USB drives were a thing.
posted by 1adam12 at 11:22 PM on January 6

Totally needs more BeOS.
posted by PROD_TPSL at 11:44 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]

This is the best website.
posted by DyRE at 11:55 PM on January 6

HIMEM is testing extended memory...

THE BEST!!!!!!
posted by DyRE at 11:59 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]

Ahh the parade of extensions loading on OS9!
posted by a humble nudibranch at 12:04 AM on January 7 [5 favorites]

Tragically missing TiVo's extraordinarily slow and painful reboot process... but I only bring that up because I'm typing this as my TiVo reboots with its fancy new software update in the background, not because it's a true OS in that sense...

The POST beep is a nice touch.
posted by disillusioned at 12:06 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]

Tivo is a program running on a Linux system, with a bunch of hardware bullshit added to make sure that the fact that it is Linux is never actually useful to you. Speaking of, I was surprised to see no Linux or BSD reboots on that page. The psychedelic rainbow colored tux the penguin drinking a beer bootsplash is one I miss (from a very old version of dyne:bolic).
posted by idiopath at 12:15 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]

I had forgotten just how incredibly non-confidence-inducing Rhapsody DR2 was. (The window in the bottom-left corner.) Clearly the engineers were still working, and the designers had gotten nowhere near the product yet.
posted by xil at 12:22 AM on January 7

Also a replica of the power switch and status indicators on Eniac would be a nice touch I think.
posted by idiopath at 12:22 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]

I am so old.
posted by trip and a half at 12:26 AM on January 7

What is this "restart Workbench" dialog I'm seeing...? Is it related to the Guru Meditation Error that was the Amiga's "why don't you take a minute and think if you want to be a part of this family!" restart message?
posted by blueberry at 12:41 AM on January 7 [3 favorites]

I feel ya, trip.... i feel ya.
posted by PROD_TPSL at 12:43 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]

No OS/2! Gutted. Not that I can remember what that used to look like, it was so long ago. I just wanted to up my geek status. Really.
posted by vac2003 at 1:24 AM on January 7

Man, they really missed out by not having a couple of Linux variants. If you want to see an intimidating wall of text scrolling by, as the kernel individually locates and starts the dozens of various devices in a modern computer, Linux is totally where it's at. A modern bootup is doing a lot of work to get the machine ready for use. PCs have become extraordinarily complex as they've gotten easier to use. They used to be pretty simple, but didn't explain anything, so they were hard to figure out. Now they handhold in every imaginable way, but the actual complexity of the machine and OS underneath is probably two orders of magnitude greater than it was, say, fifteen years ago. They're tremendously easier to use, but vastly harder to actually understand. (it can be argued, in fact, that there is not a living human being that completely understands a modern x86 machine, and there may never be again.)

More recent Linux releases have been popping up a pretty picture instead of that old intimidating bootscroll. I know it's all still there, scrolling up on a hidden text screen, and I can see it if I really want to, but still... while it's obviously an improvement, it kinda doesn't feel like Linux anymore. :)
posted by Malor at 1:51 AM on January 7 [2 favorites]

vac2003, that's the very first one, upper left. It looks like any other DOS boot, and then pops up a full screen message saying "OS/2 Warp".
posted by Malor at 1:52 AM on January 7

Another example of the remarkable correlation of pointless and amazing.
posted by bicyclefish at 1:58 AM on January 7 [2 favorites]

"it's obviously an improvement"

[citation needed]

I still have the standard old school boot up wall of text (except on my pocket computer, I am afraid of bricking that thing by messing around with the boot sequence where there is no boot from external media option), and a big part of learning about how to use a computer for me was learning what each and every line meant. If I want to see a pretty picture instead I have books laying around that I can browse for a minute or two until bootup is finished.
posted by idiopath at 2:04 AM on January 7

I'm pretty sure that the 'Restart Workbench' option never used to actually reset the machine... and why are there several for the different versions for Windows, but only AmigaOS 1.3? Ah well, nice nostalgic sound effects, at least...
posted by Chunder at 2:14 AM on January 7

I, too, am not the biggest fan of Plymouth, Malor. At least with a quick tap of the "Esc" key and the soothing stream of text returns... telling me my filesystem are mounted clean, and that all services are starting normally...

Remember when we had 8-bit micros? 6502's and 6510's... booting clean from ROM. Loading forever from cassette or 5 1/4" disks...

When you could learn every register... and code could dance in you head...

Some times I really miss those days...
posted by PROD_TPSL at 2:36 AM on January 7

What?

Why?
posted by lollusc at 3:07 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]

I can't remember ever booting OS8 with only 5 extension icons loading along the bottom of the page. No MacLinkPlus? Guess I ran a messier OS than I thought.

Did anyone else have to actually restart Firefox/Mac after visiting that page and running a few restarts? The page dorked with the visibility of my cursor and I had to restart FF to get it back.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:40 AM on January 7

Lots of fun but no SGI IRIX, the boot tunes were fun
posted by Z303 at 3:44 AM on January 7

oh man. watching Mac OS load just gave me goosebumps.
posted by es_de_bah at 4:30 AM on January 7

This is really neat. Like Thorzdad, my OS8 screen used to pull up a ton of those little icons; at least if it hung, you could figure out where there were extension conflicts.

Now it needs sound effects for the appropriate hardware; a Mac bong, and at least on my early Powerbook, the hard drive creaking and clicking into life, the head skittering across the platter ...
posted by carter at 4:31 AM on January 7

No OS/2

This just reminded me of the time I tried to load OS/2 Warp on my first computer--a Tandy 386SX/20 with something like eight megabytes (that's right, kids, megabytes) of RAM.

It...it didn't go well.

Also: Yes, Tandy and yes, 386SX/20. I know now, but at the time it was 1992 and I had no idea what I was doing.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 4:40 AM on January 7

Hey, I was all proud of having 2.5 megs on my Amiga 500, Mr. Bad Example.

You can get one hell of a lot done with a couple megs of RAM. The gigs we have these days really don't get used all that well.
posted by Malor at 4:47 AM on January 7

No System 6? For shame. I wanted to see a parade of INITs.
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:12 AM on January 7

That's as close to time travel as I've ever been.
posted by imjustsaying at 5:16 AM on January 7

Megabytes?!? Luxury! 512K on my Amiga 1000 got me multitasking just fine! It was heaven in comparison to my 64K Apple ][+!
posted by pashdown at 5:17 AM on January 7 [2 favorites]

I'm pretty that those are my least favorite operating systems but cool page.
posted by octothorpe at 5:27 AM on January 7

it kinda doesn't feel like Linux anymore. :)

One more reason for using Debian instead of one of its more Fisher-Price descendants.
posted by flabdablet at 5:45 AM on January 7 [3 favorites]

Also,

(BEEP)

]█
posted by flabdablet at 5:50 AM on January 7 [6 favorites]

My 10 year old son, who is in the throes of an absolute obsession with old computer technology, is thrilled.
posted by h00py at 6:21 AM on January 7

TWICE while playing with this I clicked a button (windows 2000 and MacOS 9), my primate brain went into "oh, I'm rebooting" mode and I started to do something else while the reboot went on.
Once I saw the start up happening, I "got back to work" and realized it was a fake reboot on a website. (I used to support a Windows 2k network and spent a LOT of time reinstalling OS9 at a client site).
posted by disclaimer at 6:50 AM on January 7 [3 favorites]

Geos or GTFO.
posted by HeroZero at 7:01 AM on January 7 [2 favorites]

I remember when I found out you could replace the Windows 95 "animated" startup screen with a bitmap named LOGO.SYS. It had to conform to a certain aspect ratio and palette, but I couldn't get it to look how I wanted in MSPaint and it took ages to reboot and test. In the end I just scrawled my name across it and called it good.
posted by rh at 7:11 AM on January 7

Thorzdad: Yeah, me too. And ooooooh man, the goosebumps. I need to go find an old beige G3 at a flea market somewhere.
posted by ZakDaddy at 7:26 AM on January 7

In the past week or so I found my box of CDs and floppies of old operating systems, and I've been installing them on VirtualBox; this website further satisfies my vintage computer desire for the moment. Plus, the website above encourages me to dig out my 40-floppy install of OS/2 Warp to see if I can install it. I had been a betatester of OS/2 4.0; I must have those disks around here someplace...
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:49 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]

Great, except that shutdown = restart.
posted by crunchland at 7:54 AM on January 7

That little tada sound when starting Windows 3.1 really did it for me. This is amazing.
posted by sveskemus at 8:10 AM on January 7

More recent Linux releases have been popping up a pretty picture instead of that old intimidating bootscroll. I know it's all still there, scrolling up on a hidden text screen, and I can see it if I really want to, but still... while it's obviously an improvement, it kinda doesn't feel like Linux anymore. :)

It is on my Ubuntu system.

Simply edit /etc/default/grub. Replace 'GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"' with 'GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""', rerun update-grub and there you are.
posted by jgaiser at 8:15 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]

Nice touch changing the mouse pointer to match the OS. The Amiga's grink-gronk noise was a bit off, though.

Totes needs a Beeb (BOO-BEEP!) and a 464 rebooting — complete with yellow on blue chequerboard, and text redraw making a scratchy noise through the speaker. For advanced lulz, the screen needs to scroll with all the sideways ROMs announcing themselves.
posted by scruss at 8:25 AM on January 7

Love it! But that Mac OS X startup chime needs to play while the screen is black, and the white shouldn't appear until it's finished.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 8:25 AM on January 7

Yeah, this is great...love the cursor change, and the noises are great. Amazing how those little cues get burned into your mind.

I booted up my parents' Mac Classic a while ago...the first computer I used...got the 'sad mac' icon, but the OS chime and HD noises, fans, etc. were SO familiar after all these years.
posted by soy bean at 8:44 AM on January 7

Hmmm. Don't see my old TRS-80 Color computer on here.

/CoCo over Commodore 64 FTW
posted by azpenguin at 8:54 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]

Windows 3.1. That's brings back some memories. I honestly forgot about the whole "kicks you to DOS" thing when you first end your Windows session. I mean, who shuts down an OS? It feel so ancient today, and yet it's not really all that long ago that I was getting my chops on an old 486 running 3.1 (actually, 3.2, I believe).
posted by asnider at 9:05 AM on January 7

...getting my chops on an old 486 running 3.1 (actually, 3.2, I believe).

Windows went from 3.1 to 3.11, then you either went into the NT OSes, or jumped to Windows 95. Well, unless you spoke chinese.
posted by AzraelBrown at 9:29 AM on January 7

that's the very first one, upper left. It looks like any other DOS boot, and then pops up a full screen message saying "OS/2 Warp".

Thanks Malor, clearly I missed that. It has been such a long time now...
posted by vac2003 at 9:46 AM on January 7

Ahh the parade of extensions loading on OS9!

Better install Conflict Catcher (and remember to reboot with extensions and control panels off for the install!)
posted by porn in the woods at 9:51 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]

Maybe this isn't relevant but... when the original DOOM started up, it was clear that the game was booting you into it's own system environment. It was one of the things that gobsmacked me about DOOM: we're taking your machine somewhere... different.
posted by SPrintF at 9:56 AM on January 7

What's with the different chime on Mac OS9? I recall my colored iMac had the same chime I hear on my macbook air?
posted by hot_monster at 10:26 AM on January 7

What's with the different chime on Mac OS9? I recall my colored iMac had the same chime I hear on my macbook air?

Ah, but OS 9 ran on Macs that predated the return of Steve.

While Steve was gone, Apple changed the startup sound several times. When he came back, he heard them and immediately demanded the original “cool” sound. The iMac happened after that, and the sound hasn't changed since. Probably never will again.

(source)
posted by spitefulcrow at 11:36 AM on January 7

Ahh, nostalgia.

I had a Mac Performa 630CD running System 7 way back in the day, and then a handful of PCs running Windows NT 4(!), 95, ME, and 2000. Then I switched to Linux and ran Red Hat 7.2 (back before RHEL and Fedora were things), Gentoo, and then Ubuntu; now I'm on my second MacBook Pro. I love it dearly but sometimes I miss watching a computer prove that it's a computer while it starts up.

For anyone that wants to know exactly what a modern Intel-based system does when it starts up, here's the process, documented in excruciating detail.
posted by spitefulcrow at 11:48 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]

The Amiga mouse pointer made me so @(#)%*#!% happy. Win.
posted by cavalier at 12:34 PM on January 7 [1 favorite]

It is a pity there's no Irix, because that was the best of all possible boot ups, it had something for everyone:
- Catchy boot sound? Check (the Indy has a great 90s riff)
- Pretty pictures? Check (the gradient on the POST screen was what told me this was a machine with heft)
- Friendly help? Check (even including clicky buttons for single-user mode)
- Intimidating scroll of text? Check (and framed inside a nice panel of graphics to boot)

Ah, Irix.
posted by fightorflight at 2:53 PM on January 7 [1 favorite]

Ahh the parade of extensions loading on OS9!

Ahh, the surging panic; will there be an extension conflict?
posted by lekvar at 3:25 PM on January 7

A few years ago, I tried a BSOD screensaver for linux. It cycled through crash / panic / Blue Screen of Death displays for a lot of different operating systems. It was way too creepy to leave up as the real screensaver, though.

Here's a video of a similar screensaver.
posted by jjj606 at 5:52 PM on January 7

Whoa, it has both the ones I'd look for: OS/2 and QNX.

I see that QNX shutdown prompt nearly daily at work (restarting really important RTOS systems).
posted by intermod at 7:41 PM on January 7

RUN RESTORE
STOP
posted by straight at 10:00 PM on January 7

Windows went from 3.1 to 3.11, then you either went into the NT OSes, or jumped to Windows 95.

Ah, well then I guess it was 3.1. I'm not sure why I've got it in my head that it was 3.2.
posted by asnider at 10:49 PM on January 7

I don't think that the chime (more of a flat bong/bing) of the Mac OS 9 boot is actually sourced from a Mac capable of running OS 9. It should be a much breathier chime sound on a Power Mac, required for booting OS 9.

I recall differences between Performas, NuBus Power Macs (6100/7100/8100) and PCI Power Macs but none of them sounded like this and I'm pretty well steeped in this era of Mac computing history (spent an afternoon trying to install a Copland beta on a 7500, for crying out loud).
posted by porn in the woods at 8:41 AM on January 9

Mr. Bad Example: "This just reminded me of the time I tried to load OS/2 Warp on my first computer--a Tandy 386SX/20 with something like eight megabytes (that's right, kids, megabytes) of RAM.

It...it didn't go well. "

I had that exact same computer! The motherboard was fully populated with 10 megs of RAM, built a hard drive cradle out of popsicle sticks, silicon glue and screws so I could add a couple hard drives (I had something like 107 megs total!!!).

Ran OS/2 Warp most of the time. Also ran 2 versions of dos (MSDOS 3.3 [the last usable MS product] and Novell DOS) and an early version of Slackware (until I did an "rm -r" from / when I thought I was in a subdir).

My smartphone could run rings around it. Hmm...wonder if I could multi-boot my smartphone?
posted by QIbHom at 1:19 PM on January 9

but none of them sounded like this and I'm pretty well steeped in this era of Mac computing history

FYI: If you download the MacTracker app you can play most of the startup sounds of Macs throughout history. Just bring up a particular model's "page" and then click on the icon of the computer to hear it's startup sound.
posted by blueberry at 8:43 PM on January 9