Re: The Mac is Dead! Long Live the Wintel PC! [was Re: Apple ahead of schedule]

On Thu, 10 Aug 2006 19:41:29 +0100, not_in_use@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Peter
Hayes) wrote:

Mike <no@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <alangbaker-C54931.18550508082006@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Alan Baker <alangbaker@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <no-4FDCCA.21365208082006@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Mike <no@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <1155086070.611254.286890@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Chris Clement" <chris.clement@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Nope. DOS as an Operating System is long dead. Now it exists only
within Windows, but not as an OS.

Well, it was never an OS, it was a DOS, Yes, there *is* a difference.

So a "Disk Operating System" was never and "Operating System"?

Yes, exactly. A Disk Operating System operates the disks - and that's
all that DOS directly controls.

DOS is command.com and it just happened to include interrupts to access
disks as well as all the other hardware associated with a 1981 computer.

Actually, "DOS" is "command.com", "msdos.sys", and "io.sys" combined.
"command.com" is just the command interpreter (shell). msdos.sys and
io.sys are the "kernal".


I suspect DOS was called "Disk Operating System" to distinguish it from
other OSs that didn't have any disk storage capabilities. A Microsoft
Marketing Move, no more no less, perhaps inspired by the original name,
QDOS (Quick & Dirty Operating System) although some might think QDOS
more apposite.

"QDOS" was indeed "Quick and Dirty Operating System", created by
Seattle Micro.

Microsoft bought it honestly from Seattle Micro, improved it, added
various user-level modules, and called it "MS-DOS" (Microsoft Disk
Operating System). They later licensed it to IBM, which called it
"IBM-DOS". Also, while we're at it, Microsoft also wrote Apple's
first BASIC language interpreter, as well as their own, and IBM's. Not
many Macdroids even know this, or want it known, for that matter.

They may also have written the first Apple structured BASIC, if I
remember correctly.

In fact, a BASIC interpreter was Microsoft's first successful venture
as a programming house. They sold it on paper-tape to "Personal
Computer" hobbyists who owned IMSAIs (the FIRST "personal computer",
Appleidiots' claims notwithstanding) and other pioneer "Personal
Computers".

Later on, Digital Rights didn't want to license it, so they cloned it
-- a "nicer" word for "backward-engineered it" (ran the b-code through
a disassembler, found out how each low-level call operated, then
re-wrote the assembly code differently, in such a way that no one
could say they "copied" it, using different addressing) and called it
"DR-DOS". Of course, Digital Rights did add a few goodies, like an
expanded command interpreter, pre-emptive multitasking, and improved
memory management. But basically, it was still a rip off of MS-DOS.
Many believe (and not without merit) it surpassed MS-DOS in elegance
and usability. Since I never used it, I cannot comment on it beyond
that.

At NO TIME in this process did Microsoft claim authorship of the
original product. At NO TIME has Microsoft EVER stolen ANYTHING from
ANYONE. They might have had very overbearing licensing terms, but
they NEVER stole a thing from anyone. Every company, ever technology,
they aquired they acquired honestly, or developed themselves in-house.

They copied good ideas. Of course they did. Good ideas are good
ideas, no matter who first has them. All programmers copy all other
programmers, just like all comics copy all other comics. While
fully-developed ideas are patentable, the ideas themselves are not.

Microsoft's genius is in being able to take undeveloped ideas and
develop them into patentable forms, then promote them to the general
public and corporations. No one should fault them for that. They are
idiots to try, and only show their own jealousy if they do. Human
jealousy is a bad thing, folks.


If you think that DOS is an Operating System then you don't know very
much about either. DOS + Windows 3.11 + Mouse.sys + Himem.sys (or
QEMM386.sys) + Smartdrv.sys was an Operating System. An ugly kludge
to be sure, but an Operating System none the less.

Since you don't mention msdos.sys, command.com, or io.sys, I assume
you have no idea what MS-DOS is, either.

Windows 3.x and its predecessors are merely applications running on DOS.
DOS was still the OS and everything else were applications.

Actually, Windows for Workgroups was the pre-cursor to NT. It added
high-level networking extensions onto Windows, plus Win32 (the 32-bit
rewrite of Win16). While it did "run on DOS", it did it more as a
higher-level extension of DOS, not as a shell on top of DOS, as the
earlier iterations of Windows were. But it still needed DOS to
perform many low-level functions. When Win32 was added, Microsoft's
future as a top-level programming house was assured forever. Win32
enabled Microsoft to leave DOS behind, and embark on its NT journey,
which ends forever with Vista.

In Windows XP, command.com has been replaced by cmd.exe, which came
over from NT 4.x. The kernal is no longer msdos.sys and io.sys. Those
three together make up MS-DOS. Anything else was a module of DOS,
until Windows for Workgroups and NT.

One WILL find command.com in a folder of ~\Windows, however. But it
is NOT the command interpreter for Windows anymore. It is included
mostly to be able to create backward-compatible start floppies for
earlier versions of Windows and DOS, and for some legacy apps. ALL
legacy DOS calls are filtered through the Windows 32 API and kernal.

Windows XP does not even parse autoexec.bat or config.sys (although it
can. But none of the information is useful to XP). In fact, these
two files are zero-length files, found in the root folder of the
System volume. Windows XP no longer uses DOS in any way. Even the
so-called "DOS command prompt" is emulated by Windows. Opening an XP
"DOS command prompt" does NOT give one access to MS-DOS. It is NOT
possible to reboot XP into real-mode MS-DOS (unless, of course, one
uses an MS-DOS boot floppy. But one would no longer be "In Windows"
from then on, until it was removed and he rebooted into XP, since XP
no longer contains MS-DOS.)

When one opens such a command prompt, it says "Microsoft Windows XP
5.1", not "Microsoft DOS x.x".

When one runs a legacy app, a virtual "DOS box" is created in the
common memory pool, being assigned 1 mb. When legacy apps make DOS
(low-level system) calls, those calls are passed on to the Win32 API,
which translates them into Win32 calls, and passes them to the XP
kernal, which performs the low-level functions, just as io.sys and
msdos.sys used to with Windows versions previous to NT, and which
command.com did when it translated them into b-code and passed to the
MS-DOS kernal modules, io.sys and msdos.sys.

That is MS-DOS and Windows 9x (in a nutshell).

==

Donald L McDaniel
Please Reply to the Original Thread.
========================================================
.

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