🚀 go-pugleaf

TheAnalyst@Nfo.Org wrote:

>Correct, not their code.  MS-DOS was originally called Q-DOS and was written by
>a genius in the seattle (I think seattle) area.  M$ bought all rights to it for
>$50,000.

It may be arguable whether Tim Patterson is a genius or not, but it's
true that he wrote the original version.  Though he originally called it
QDOS, Seattle Computer Products (his employer at the time) called it
86-DOS.

>All M$ has done over the years is optimize the code, and added a few meaning
>less features.  I think that Win '95 is proof that they couldn't write a descent
>os from scratch if they had to, even Win '95 is based on MS-DOS.  Just with a
>GUI.

Pardon my pointing it out, but this is roughly like saying "A 747 is
just a paper airplane any schoolkid could fold up with some
optimizations and meaningless features added."

Consider that 86-DOS' file system used extents like CP/M's instead of
FAT. (It may be fashionable to slam FAT now, but it was a drastic
improvement over extents.)  86-DOS didn't support any kind of i/o
redirection, or ability to treat devices as files.  It had no
subdirectories.  It supported only .com files, with no relocation
ability.  It had no memory management or support for TSRs.  It had no
ability to load device drivers.  If you want an idea of how much MS has
changed DOS, pull out a copy of MS-DOS 1.0, and see how many of your
current programs will run on it.  Then keep in mind that even DOS 1.0
was already changed considerably compared to 86-DOS.

The reality of the situation is almost entirely the opposite of your
statement: as of DOS 2.0, virtually all of MS-DOS had been completely
rewritten from the ground up, and essentially all that was left of
86-DOS was a set of compatibility functions.  The majority of these are
virtually never used except by ancient programs converted directly from
CP/M.

Finally, keep in mind that MS-DOS is _far_ from the only system MS has
written over the years: MS is also largely or completely responsible for
OS/2, Windows NT and Xenix.

>And lets not spam all those nice programming groups.

An excellent idea.  Making some attempt at educating yourself on the
subject matter at hand prior to posting would be a good start at that.