- Location
- Neptune
Nope. Windows NT 3.51
No. She would have used the magic power of documentation to enable any competent developer to do the job.
- Location
- Salt Lake City, UT, USA
... Eh. Close enough for government work. (See what I did thar?)
Nope, I used to work on the SP2 Support Line before going to work for Sprint as an admin on their SP2 systems. If it was an IBM supercomputer, it was an SP2, which mean it was AIX, a version of Unix.
If it was a mainframe, it was probably OS/360, but I never dealt with mainframes (thank god) so I have no clue to be honest.
Yup, that was given in her introduction as the reason she was being assigned to the team - as a technical expert who knew the dialing system inside-out and backwards and could probably get them home eventually if something went wrong.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
In case anyone is wondering, here's a screenshot of an SGC computer from Season 6, Episode 5:
Incidentally, that is the documents partition of the system. Yes. The SGC decided to make C drive a non-root partition for documents.
Here's another fun screencap.
Check out that little windoze icon on the virtual keyboard.
Which is unusual, because in one scene we see that the SGC apparently use highly customized keyboards:
Yes. That keyboard does indeed say what you think it says.
And here's a shot from that one episode from Season 1 that literally everyone remembers because sexual innuendo.
NETSCAPE!
But the real funny is in the address: Carter is looking up Hathor on C drive (that's the documents partition remember), /http/www/ancient/internal/hathor.html
Yes. The SGC C drive documents partition has a folder called http, with another folder called www inside it, for... some reason.
Note that Carter says she is 'researching her right now on the net' before we see this, so apparently the SGC has an internal archive of the entire internet stored in their 9.6 gigabyte C drive documents partition.
The best part about this though? Carter pages down and we see this:
Ishtar, goddess of really bad movies.
hehehehehehehehehehehehe
But yeah; the SGC runs Windows.
Explains a lot doesn't it?
Incidentally, that is the documents partition of the system. Yes. The SGC decided to make C drive a non-root partition for documents.
Here's another fun screencap.
Check out that little windoze icon on the virtual keyboard.
Which is unusual, because in one scene we see that the SGC apparently use highly customized keyboards:
Yes. That keyboard does indeed say what you think it says.
And here's a shot from that one episode from Season 1 that literally everyone remembers because sexual innuendo.
NETSCAPE!
But the real funny is in the address: Carter is looking up Hathor on C drive (that's the documents partition remember), /http/www/ancient/internal/hathor.html
Yes. The SGC C drive documents partition has a folder called http, with another folder called www inside it, for... some reason.
Note that Carter says she is 'researching her right now on the net' before we see this, so apparently the SGC has an internal archive of the entire internet stored in their 9.6 gigabyte C drive documents partition.
The best part about this though? Carter pages down and we see this:
Ishtar, goddess of really bad movies.
hehehehehehehehehehehehe
But yeah; the SGC runs Windows.
Explains a lot doesn't it?
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- Location
- Software
At least they used Navigator!
Imagine if they used IE3, the thing most bugged in the universe since the invention of bee hives!
Uh, I think you mean X-Windows.
I can't recall if that was an old version of KDE or GNO/ME, but I recall running that desktop manager with Yellow Dog Linux 2.1 back around 2000 or 2001 on my PowerMac 6500/300. Yellow Dog Linux was a PowerPC port of Red Hat (now Fedora) Linux. I'd check, but said PowerMac died in 2009.
I'm almost certain it is an old version of KDE however, since I did not use GNO/ME much back then, but it could be either. Both have had their GUI updated since then in the same way Windows has undergone revisions and much like how Windows 7 looks quite different from Windows 2000 and Win10 looks even more different from XP.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
The users on Reddit's Stargate boards think it is WindowBlinds, which was released in 1998, slightly after the canonical start of the Stargate series (Children of the Gods takes place in mid 1997).
The browser in use in the Hathor shots is very obviously just bog-standard Netscape 4, with the 'communicator' tab at the top referring to Netscape Communicator, released in June 1997. Seeing as this is approximately the same time that Children of the Gods is set, it seems clear that it was a deliberate choice to make the SGC computer systems look as modern as possible.
The appearance of the Windows key on the virtual keyboard in Stargate: Atlantis certainly implies that the SGC is indeed using Windows as their standard OS, and as it seems unlikely that they would change OS, even over the decade+ that the program ran for, that suggests to me that they used Windows right from the start.
Incidentally, the dialing computer very clearly uses its own, unique, customized OS:
Which makes sense, as it is explicitly stated by Carter in Children of the Gods that it took 15 years and three supercomputers to create the system.
It also gets brought up later on in the series that the two primary reasons why the SGC and their off-world sites continue to use their kitbashed dialing computer even when they have DHD's available are for security and compatibility purposes; the dialing computer is immune to malware aimed at the Stargate system, such as the Avenger virus, and unlike a DHD the dialing computer is compatible with other SGC computer systems, aka Windows.
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- Location
- Neptune
How is a full-screen UI evidence for a unique custom OS?Incidentally, the dialing computer very clearly uses its own, unique, customized OS:
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
We literally never see it running anything else, ever, and all the other screens (the SGC dialing computer has at least a dozen) never show anything other than similar graphics.
Most importantly though, as I said right after that picture, Carter outright states that it took 15 years and 3 supercomputers to create the dialing system. It seems rather unlikely that if they were putting that much effort into it that they would just use Windows.
Remember; the dialing computer acts as a bridge between human operating systems (Windows) and whatever OS the Ancients used. It's not just a thing that shows what is happening to the Stargate, it literally interfaces directly with the Stargate's internal programming. That system has to translate from Alteran Crystal Computer Architecture to Windows and back again, I find it implausible that such would merely be a program running on Windows, even by Stargate's usual standards.
It is also mentioned in-universe that the dialing computer is compatible with SGC computer systems, which further implies that it uses a non-Windows OS that is compatible with Windows, rather than Windows itself.
Plus, Carter wrote the damn thing. Look me in the eye and tell me that she would have just used Windows when she had every excuse to create her own super special OS for interfacing with alien technology.
(Also, the dialing computer system is apparently ludicrously user friendly, given that every villain of the week and his dog can take one look at it and immediately make it do whatever they want to, up to and including activating the base's self destruct nuke. Does that sound like Windows to you? Haha. No.)
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- Location
- Neptune
I see the same at work every single day. Those machines still run their software and custom UI on top of various flavours of Windows or Linux.
You are still confusing the application layer with the underlying OS
It's running on QNX instead.
So, a Unix derivative or OS/390.
So because Carter is excited about the Stargate she spends years of her life writing base file handling routines, task schedulers, processor drivers...? I think not.Plus, Carter wrote the damn thing. Look me in the eye and tell me that she would have just used Windows when she had every excuse to create her own super special OS for interfacing with alien technology.
Actually that sounds like TempleOS.
Point is, Carter wrote the software running the Stargate, not the OS that allows the software to do its job.
I believe that there was a scene in SG where O'neill reprograms the DHD and drops it straight to DOS, and it reboots straight back to this OS, suggesting its the main system on the machine, and not a separate executable program.*
McKay in SGA on the other hand has (as far as I can remember) a separate executable program of the DHD on his laptop/tablet, that unlike this one is colorful- but that's about as far as info goes on it.
*Edit. After he gets the Ancient database data dump and he needs to reach the Asgard.
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DOS; an interactive bootloader.
It is stands to reason the dialing computer is it's own machine; the Stargate series actually takes physical security seriously and understands the issues with computer networking. That is the dialing computer is "airgapped" and simply can't connect to existing networks (without physical configuration changes).
The DHD also has a cold-fusion and/or naquadah reactor which normally powers the stargate. It could simply be for some reason the power source or some of the control systems didn't function reliably next to an active stargate, so the Ancients started dumping extra functionality into them since they needed something to power them.
For example, all the ring transport systems have the teleporting ring bits being independent of the multi-ton control system.
The Milkyway Stargate are canonically the ragnarok proofed versions, and are ridiculously durable, stable and reliable during normal operation. The entire automatic coordinate system updating to account for stellar drift is one serious case of future proofing.
This is the most likely answer - QNX is traditionally used anywhere that realtime reactions are needed from an OS - all of the in-car computer systems that you see the last ten years? Those run on QNX. Not because it's popular or user friendly, but because it's got built in compatibility with realtime processing, which means being able to react to emergency interrupts (unscheduled off-world activation anyone?) without having to wait for some other task to complete first, and the inherent stability that comes with only having features and drivers for exactly and only the hardware you're running it on. The QNX installed on your GMC truck will not understand the devices attached to a tomahawk missile, and vice versa, because including pointless extra drivers and checks to identify new hardware slows things down and adds points that can cause crashes.
- Location
- Neptune
That just means they replaced explorer.exe as the Windows shell (assuming this is a Windows machine but other operating systems can do the same) with their application. How to boot directly into an application
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
That is a very good point, I went and checked out that episode and we get two different screens from it:
This is the screen that Jack is typing into, which Carter later identifies as 'machine code' and says that Jack must have been writing a program.
'Root compiler status active' huh. Actually there's quite a lot of information there, including the fact that apparently Ancient-mindfucked Jack does his programming with the debugger disabled. I suspect that the Ancients in general probably did their programming with the debugger disabled, as this would explain a lot.
Teal'c then pulls Jack off of the computer he's using and the entire SGC dialing computer shuts down for a second, complete with screens turning off and a 'power down' sound. It then reboots directly into this screen.
Which is where Carter says the line about 'machine code' and Jack's programming.
The second screenshot is particularly notable, as according to the top-left it is apparently performing a core dump. Also note down the bottom, one of the available options is 'WIN', presumably Windows.
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This designation can be used for other things, like splitting the window, or changing the active window view to another tab, though its placement in the middle does seem a bit strange. There is also a separate 'Quit' tab on the right.
Though the first thing that crossed my head was "Ancient repository button that helps you WIN the game." Because Ancients
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
I figured that WIN probably means Windows because we're pretty sure that other SGC systems do indeed run Windows and the dialing computer is supposed to be compatible with them, so it is probably capable of running Windows as well, it just doesn't.
But yeah, it could mean something else. And I have no idea what the 'Quit' button is supposed to mean; does it quit whatever program this is? Does it shut down the entire computer system? What about SYS and NTWK, what do they do? Or FILTER? And there's FILE and EDIT buttons on the left, which could imply a program, but apparently a program that is attached to a root compiler and automatically performs core dumps in the event of an unexpected restart?
I'm sure it all makes sense to Carter, I am less sure that it makes sense to literally anyone else except McKay.
But yeah, it could mean something else. And I have no idea what the 'Quit' button is supposed to mean; does it quit whatever program this is? Does it shut down the entire computer system? What about SYS and NTWK, what do they do? Or FILTER? And there's FILE and EDIT buttons on the left, which could imply a program, but apparently a program that is attached to a root compiler and automatically performs core dumps in the event of an unexpected restart?
I'm sure it all makes sense to Carter, I am less sure that it makes sense to literally anyone else except McKay.
- Location
- Software
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Nah, they know what it is; an annoying thing that keeps getting in the way of making awesome stuff.Probably won't know what that is, IMVHO
The Ancients are the kind of people who would design the best, most effective debugging program ever to exist, and then routinely refuse to use it because it irritates them.
Except... you'd write the compiler to optimize it just precisely so it had those effects and nothing else.
Modern compilers are witchcraft. Witchcraft I tell you!
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Ah, but you see; every individual Ancient has their own ideas about which bugs are features and which features are bugs, so a compiler that is optimized for Amelius would be completely useless if anyone other than Amelius was using it.
Easier to just turn the debugger off and not write bugs into your code. Because, honestly, what kind of a noob puts bugs in their code?
- Location
- Software
Please drop it, the Ancients are already terrifying enough! We do not need more scary stories of them!
Which is why the first exercise any Ancient is given when starting their education is to write their personal compiler, of course!