>>55478485
Because it popped up relatively early and sold itself hard to businesses. Plus, developing an OS from UNIX seems a lot easier than making a non-UNIX system

>>55478485
>Why is Windows the only relevant operating system that isnt based off of UNIX?
Because it's based off of VMS.

File: [HorribleSubs] Amanchu! - 01 [1080p]_0001_00:18:36_[2016_07_08_13].png (2 MB, 1920x1080) Image search: [Google]

2 MB, 1920x1080

>>55478485
define relevant.

>>55478485
Linux isn't based off Unix either. Until Windows 8, Windows was more Unix based than Linux was, its entire TCP/IP stack was lifted from BSD.

But to answer your question, all but one* of the currently relevant OSs came from software people or software companies, not from hardware companies. Hardware companies created OSs for their hardware, and the mandate for the OS was to leverage their hardware that was their actual product. Once their hardware lost their market share due to the competiveness of x86/x64 and ARM, the OSs died with them.

It's a shame, because operating systems like VMS and Genera had some amazing features.

*The exception is zOS. It will be forever tied to the 360/XA architecture. But those machines are still extremely relevant today in fortune 500 companies.

>>55480993
Continuing. Microsoft took portability so seriously that Windows/NT was originally developed on the MIPS R3000 processor, then ported to x86, even though they knew up front that x86 was going to be the main architecture for the OS. But it had such a whacky architecture that they went out of their way to make sure that x86-isms didn't creep into the architecture. Microsoft has always supported Windows on at least two architectures at all times, one CISC, one or more RISC. x86/x64 has been the CISC architecture, and the RISC version was first MIPS, then DEC Alpha, then the Intel/HP Itanium and PowerPC (XBox 360), and now ARM.

>>55480993
>Until Windows 8, Windows was more Unix based than Linux was
wat

>>55481110
Took the bait, didn't you?