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MS-DOS 1981-2002 RIP
Biedermann writes "This is not exactly hot news, just a quick reminder to count the last days: A table in this article tells us that MS-DOS (as well as Windows 3.x, Windows 95 and NT 3.5x) reach their "End of Life" (as defined by Microsoft) on December 31, 2002.
Come on, even if you loathed them, they were good for jokes at least."
...I grew up on that thing :) Ever since my uncle plopped me down in front of his 386SX to play Doom shareware (I know, I'm a youngin), I've been a computer geek ever since.
:/
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Even after going from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95, I still found it better to do 80% of my stuff from the command line. Windows 98 SE finally kicked me off of that habit
Sigh, command lines... so fun, so minimalist. I don't like my start menu
Lordfly
hookers and grits.
DOS is still in Netware. Perhaps we should add Netware to the list too...
Someone you trust is one of us.
MS-DOS is dead? What will MR-DOS do without her?
:'(
RIP TSR's...WOLF3D will miss you
We now have confirmed reports from an informed Orange County minister that Ethel is still an active communist.
For all the M$ bashing we (and that includes me) do, MS-DOS at least had a few honours in it's favour...
.ZIP file and *bam* done.
1) It was secure. Since you could never get it to network to anything, it could not be hacked from the Internet
2) It ran. With a 15 second reboot even on my old machine, a freeze was no more than a minor annoyance
3) (This is a serious one) For all the hassle of having to configure this and IRQ that, anyone using MS-DOS had to have at least a working knowledge of computers.
4) Reinstall took less than 10 minutes. Just keep a boot disk handy and copy the whole DOS directory from your
5) No SPAM!!!!!
You can have it fast, accurate, or pretty. Pick any 2.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I guess with the home version of XP they really do mean it this time?
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
Popularized in the 80's beyond academic circles due to the exploding popularity of the IBM PC's and the ability to make cheap, compatible hardware, MS-DOS has lost marketshare steadily throughout the decade of the 90's.
Since the release of Windows '95, more and more powerful computers have been required to run the "latest and greatest software," and as a result, older computers often get tucked away in the attic with old Apple IIe machines.
Those that are still in use are generally used by part-time hackers and developers, who use modern UNIX-variants, such as *BSD (also dying) and GNU/Linux (commonly referred to as Linux), which have had support for 386-based machines for over a decate.
It's time we accepted this simple fact: MS-DOS is DYING.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
You guys deally have to wait for Windows ME to die before you can proclaim DOS dead.
The one date companies are concerned about is the non-supported date for NT4, which is this coming June 2003.
I want to note that in all these years no group has been able to completely replace dos.
- www.freedows.org doesn't even work anymore
Gee.. maybe if you spelled the URL right!
It's http://www.freedos.org/, and they appear to be doing just fine.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
MS:DOS:
Celebrating 21 years without a remote root exploit!
Take that OpenBSD! =)
Unix is user friendly, it's just more picky who it's friends are.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
"What's surprising is that DOS *hasn't* been replaced by something better and more similar to the shells available under Unix."
You mean like 4Dos or the version of bash they ported to win32?
Just because you can't get them from MS doesn't mena you can't get them.
Ok, a definition for you:
OS: Operating System
DOSDisk Operating System
Now, to tear you apart like a hungry lion on a small lamb...
DOS wasn't that bad of an OS. That's no bullshit.
Well, DOS was hardly an OS in the first place.
See above definition
Most of the stuff that is part of OSes simply do not exist in DOS: sound drivers, GUI, system services, etc.
I hate to destroy your perception of things, but... System Services = Bloat
Sound Drivers = Multimedia Support (Which was actually available in MS-DOS)
GUI=Graphical User Interface... (known as a UI not an OS, the UI is a *part of an OS, but it has nothing to do with it either being or not being an OS)
Is there really anything DOS could do, except launch programs?
Actually yes, many things... I know of companies that still use DOS for many things to this day for accounting, customer tracking, or other important tasks.
Now, other than that... I will admit that programming programs to use only 64k of memory was indeed a challenge, but hey it's the challenge that what makes things worth doing.
Now which is more intuitive /dev/fda /dev/hda /dev/hda
/dev/hd*
On the other hand, how big of a pain in the ass is it to be limited to having each physical drive mapped to a different drive letter? In unix, any number of physical drives can be mounted in the same directory structure. So my home directory can be on a completely different drive than yours, but they will both be accessible from /home/.
As for your prompt, it can be anything you want it to be. Also, dir vs. ls is as simple as alias dir="ls -al" (this is what I use on our solaris box at work). Linux even has a dir command out of the box, so to speak.
a: or
c: or
c:> or $
dir or ls
format c: or mke2fs
Those are all pretty stupid comparisons. Obviously any partitions would be mounted somewhere meaningful and not used from
Face it: DOS is a very, very primitive OS. Even in 1981 when it was released, it was already outdated.
Do you judge Windows 2000 / XP today by how outdated Windows 1.0 was when it was released? After all, it didn't even have overlapping Windows! That's just holding a grudge, wouldn't you say?
A decade later, when it was still shipped on most PCs, it was even more outdated. multi-user, multitasking... As a die-hard Microsoft user you probably don't know, but those existed long before Windows - and also before DOS.
It would really depend on how you define "primitive", and how necessary those (often bloated) "advanced" features are. If the user doesn't really need more than what DOS offers, no multi-tasking, no bells and whistles, runs a large collection of existing software, then does it really matter how old it is? A battery-powered, 5 speed Model Uber-2000 screwdriver would still be passed over today by most people for a simple philips that fits neatly in a small toolbox.
DOS still has its fans today. See the FreeDOS project. If such a project can improve DOS (I've been under the understanding that it stands for Direct Operating System) to a 32-bit operating system that does many of the things that modern operating systems do today while still maintaining the simple and efficient elements of older DOSes, why should it ever "die"?
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh