Tales of GUIs and OSes

January 1983	Lisa Office System	Cooperative multitasking, virtual memory.
January 1984	System 1.0 (Mac OS 1)	A simplified version of Lisa system. Icons were designed by Dr. Susan Kare, the designer dogcow, Happy Mac and Command Key. She also designed the icon of Notepad.exe and many other icons in Windows and the cards in solitaire game. 255 characters long file name, finder support 63 characters. Single task, menu on top.
May 1984	System 1.1 (Mac OS 1.1, System Software 0.1)	Performance improvement. Ability to start certain programs at the time system startup.
June 1984	X1	X1 was originated from "W".
January 1985	X6
April 1985	System 2.0 (Mac OS 2.0, System Software 0.3)	"New Folder" command. "List" view. Shutdown command. Eject disks by dragging them to trash. "MiniFinder" introduced.
September 1985	System 2.1 (Mac OS 2.1)	HFS introduced. 31 characters file name.
September 1985	X9	Color. MIT License.
November 1985	Windows 1.01	Support multitasking from the beginning, thus menus on each windows.
January 1986	System3.0 (Mac OS 3.0, System Software 0.7)	Disck Cache was introduced.
January 1986	System 3.3 (Mac OS 3.3, System Software 2.0)	Introduced AppleShare.
March 1987	System 4.0 (Mac OS 4.0, System Software 2.01)	AppleTalk was introduced.
September 1987	X11	The contemporary protocol of X.
October 1987	System 4.2 (Mac OS 4.2, System Software 5.0 )	Color menu! Cooperative multitasking.
November 1987	Windows 2.0	Windows can be overlapped. "Plug n play" function in school version. Minimize and maximize idea.
April 1988	System 6 (Mac OS 6, System Software 6.0)	Last Mac OS written in assembly. 24 bits memory access.
May 1988	Windows 2.1 286/386	Dos programs running in a window.
October 1988	NEXTSTEP 0.8
October 1988	OS/2 1.1
September 1989	NEXTSTEP 1.0	Mach 2.5, BSD 4.3. Objective C, Interface builder. Display Postscript based GUI.
May 1990	Windows 3.0	Redesigned control panel with Mac style.
September 1990	NEXTSTEP 2.0	CD ROM support. Color monitor. Spell checker.
May 1991	System 7 (Mac OS 7, System Software 7.0)	32bit. Built in cooperative multitasking. Desktop folder. Applescript. TrueType. Trash won't be automatically emptied. File sharing via AppleTalk. Alias. Solid multiscreen support.
March 1992	Windows 3.1	TrueType.
March 1992	OS/2 2.0
September 1992	XFree86 1.0	First version of XFree86. X11R5.
September 1992	NEXTSTEP 3.0	Base of OS X.
July 1993	Windows NT 3.1	32bit. Unicode support. Supported X86, Alpha and MIPS.
August 1994	XFree86 3.0	X11R6.
September 1994	Windows NT 3.5	Added PowerPC support.
October 1994	OS/2 Warp 3.0
May 1995	Windows NT 3.51	NTFS 1.2.
August 1995	Windows 95	32/16bit hybrid. Long file name. New user interface. "Plug n Play". Extensive use of right key click.
July 1996	Windows NT 4.0	Windows 95 style GUI.
July 1996	OpenSTEP 4.0	Runs on SunOS, HP-UX, Windows NT.
September 1996	OS/2 Warp 4.0
November 1996	Windows CE 1.0
November 1996	Windows 95 SR2.1	USB and AGP support.
May 1997	XFree86 3.3	XFree86 Acceleration Architecture.
July 1997	System 8 (Mac OS 8, System Software 8.0)	HFS+ file system. 255 UTF-16 characters file name in system, Finder only support 31 characters. Multi threaded finder.
September 1997	Windows CE 2.0
December 1997	Windows 95 SR2.5	Better USB/AGP support. IE4 and DirectX 5. Active Desktop.
January 1998	System 8.1	Support for USB.
June 1998	Windows 98	FAT32.
July 1998	KDE 1.0	KOM/OpenParts, kdm, KMail, krn.
February 1999	KDE 1.1
March 1999	GNOME 1.0
May 1999	Windows 98SE	IE5, DirectX6.1.
February 2000	Windows2000	Solid Windows NT kernel, new interface. NTFS 3.0
March 2000	Freedesktop.org launched.
June 2000	Windows CE 3.0
September 2000	Windows Me	IE5.5, Mediaplayer 7. Windows 2000 style interface.
October 2000	KDE 2.0	KParts, aRts, Sycoca.
March 2001	Mac OS X 10.0	Quartz/PDF support. Cocoa. Aqua. Drop shadows. Services menu. 255 characters file name in Finder. Extensive use of unicode.
February 2001	KDE 2.1
August 2001	KDE 2.2
September 2001	Mac OS X 10.1	Better CD/DVD burning. DVD playback. Better printer support. Became useful.
October 2001	Windows XP	NTFS 3.1, new interface. Icons designed by iconfactory.
January 2002	Windows CE 4.0
April 2002	KDE3.0	Audits, Xinerama.
June 2002	GNOME 2.0	GTK2.
August 2002	Mac OS X 10.2	Windows networks support. Quartz Extreme. Rendezvous (Bonjour). CUPS. Happy Mac was replaced.
November 2002	Mac OS X 10.2.2	Journaling in HFS+.
January 2003	KDE3.1.
September 2003	GNOME 2.4
October 2003	Mac OS X 10.3	Brushed metal. Exposé. Fax. X11. *.doc support. Fast User Switching. Automatic file defragmentation and hotfile clustering. HFSX. FileVault.
January 2004	X.Org Foundation formed
February 2004	KDE3.2
March 2004	GNOME 2.6.	Nautilus update.
April 2004	X11R6.7.	First X.org release.
August 2004	KDE 3.3
August 2004	Windows XP SP2	Better security features.
March 2005	KDE 3.4
April 2005	Mac OS X 10.4	ACL. Spotlight. Automator. Smart Folders. Sync Services. VoiceOver. Core Image. Core Video.
November 2005	KDE 3.5
December 2005	X11R6.9/7.0	EXA.
January 2006	xgl	Open to public.
February 2006	Compiz	Initial release.
May 2006	X11R7.1	KDrive, AIGLX.
Semptember 2006	Beryl	Beryl forked from Compiz.
January 2007	Windows Vista	Windows Aero. Windows Flip 3D. Windows Shell. Instant Search. Windows Sidebar. IE7. Media Player 11. Backup and Restore center. Windows Mail. Windows Calendar. Windows Photo Gallery. Windows DVD maker/movie maker. Shadow Copy. Parental Control. Windows sideshow. Speech recognition. DX10.
February 2007	X11R7.2	XCB.
March 2007	Beryl and Compiz merge	Compiz Fusion.
September 2007	X11R7.3	DTrace, input hogplug, output hotplug.
October 2007	Mac OS X 10.5	Updated Finder. Dock with Stack. Time Machine. Spaces. Quick Look. Boot Camp. Core Animation. DTrace.
January 2008	KDE 4.0