🚀 go-pugleaf

>In article <46878@nigel.ee.udel.edu> johnston@oscar.ccm.udel.edu 
>Bill Johnston writes:
>   If you are looking for a villain in this situation, look carefully at
>   Microsoft.  On the strength of a positively TRIVIAL OS -- MS-DOS, 
>   they've extorted tribute from most of the PC-using world.  

Having been around perhaps a little longer than you have, or perhaps
been a little more observant than you have, let me belaboredly point
out that there was RTMS (Intel's original real-time x86 OS?), CP/M-86,
MP/M-86, Concurrent CP/M-86, QNX, XENIX, PCIX, OS/2, & lots of other
OS's for PCClones.  If you want to find villians, look at the folks
who didn't buy these other OS's, not a software company who DID NOT
sue any of these folks (such as Apple has).  The buying public has &
has had alternatives to MSDOS, so by what stretch of the imagination
do you use the word "extortion"?  Many of the listed OS's are
certainly non-trivial...why haven't they flourished -- maybe the
buying public is satisfied with easy to install & maintain MSDOS.

Oh, come to think of it, IBM had a choice of OS's when it introduced
the IBM-PC & they chose to support MS-DOS...so let's not forget their
complicity in this villainy.  But then, IBM did foster PCIX years ago
& OS/2 more recently, so their villainy isn't so clear, either.

What fun...

-- 
<> Bob `Bear' Geer <>               bgeer@javelin.sim.es.com              <>
<>      Alta-holic <>   speaking only for myself, one of my many tricks   <>
<> Salt Lake City, <>    "We must strive to be more than we are, Lal."    <>
<>          Ootah  <>           -- Cmdr. Data, learning schmaltz          <>