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25 Years After DOS - Lessons for Linux?
E IS mC(Square) writes "Microsoft is planning to celebrate 25 years of DOS. An article at ReallyLinux discusses what lessons Linux can learn from the history of DOS. The article begins with 'What can the Linux world learn from Microsoft's past 25 years of unique experiences and domination?', and ends with 'Only question now is not if but when will Linux become the number one OS on earth?'" From the article: "First, we must admit openly once and for all that the 'best solution' is not always the 'most used solution.' There are few who would be foolish enough to argue that back in 1981 PC-DOS was the best solution. There were obviously a number of choices. PC-DOS was the least robust, the most temperamental, and arguably not very compatible with the IBM hardware and BIOS it was sold to work on. Yet, somewhat like the odd but obvious dominance of the VHS over BETA, this simple, cheap OS stole the show."
I'm sure Linux could learn a lot by including a DOS utility... preferably pointed at Microsoft's servers?
My UID is prime... is yours?
This topic has been covered millions of times. "It's not if, it's when Linux will..." and finish the quote with some audacious goal. If Linux can solve the problems, let it. If it can't, then fine. Do we really need to regurgitate this same idea over and over again?
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
This is the attitude that is going to prevent that from ever happening. I wish the movers and shakers in the Linux world would decide to focus on a subset of the OS market, and do it well, instead of trying to do everything and losing focus of good engineering practices...
"Yet, somewhat like the odd but obvious dominance of the VHS over BETA, this simple, cheap OS stole the show."
It was easy for DOS to "steal the show". The purchase of every PC basically required a license of this "cheap OS" by order of Mighty Microsoft. And of course that money went straight to them.
As a poster in the HP/Linux story wrote today, to this day some hardware vendors have contracts with MS that require them to sell a Windows license with every system, even if they're going to run Linux. Maybe THAT is what Microsoft is really celebrating. 25 years and going...
In other news the bacteria E.Coli is celebrating a glorious million year aniversary as the intestinal parasite of choice when it comes to sudden, explosive diarrhea.
Seriously, the only, and I mean ONLY good thing about dos was when you programmed for it, it got the hell out of the way and let you at the hardware. Software got full control of the machine at execution, giving great performance (which mattered at the time) and more reliable software. The only downside was a complete lack of library infrastructure for functionality sharing beyond simple io. Well that and the whole "ssh! pretend its a 8Mhz 8088" real-mode limitation.
The first rule of USENET is you do not talk about USENET.
. . .because the ad told you it was the best selling, don't you?
Come on, admit it. "Most used" isn't a criteria for Open Source development. MS has very, very little to teach OSS, because they are innately in different worlds. Stop with the "market think" already.
If, and when, Linux takes over as the most used OS it will be as a side effect. If it does not take over, well, then at least it's a better alternative freely available to anyone.
Mercedes doesn't feel any obligation to make Escort knockoffs just because more of them are sold, and they are market driven.
KFG
There's nothing odd about the dominance of vhs over beta. Vhs had porn, beta did not.
There were obviously a number of choices. PC-DOS was the least robust, the most temperamental, and arguably not very compatible with the IBM hardware and BIOS it was sold to work on. Yet, somewhat like the odd but obvious dominance of the VHS over BETA, this simple, cheap OS stole the show.
A more apt comparison I have not seen. In the end, both were about marketing---the inferior product had better marketing strategies pushing them. Both were championed by groups whose main selling point was that it was "good enough" to do what you wanted, but without you having to pay out the nose for more proprietary solutions.
While I am sure that there are lessons to be learned from the history of DOS, I think that the biggest one that has shone itself since then is that it really doesn't matter. What I mean by that is that I do not believe that the future will hold as much singular dominance as it once did. What linux and other OSS projects have taught me is that there are other choices, other solutions for a particular problem. It may be OSS, it may be proprietary. It really doesn't matter. Also what I believe to be tantamount to that is that linux and the OSS community as a whole needs to learn is that users are not going to use difficult products. That is why the GUI came into existence. Most users shunned computers until they had a way of interacting with them that had some intuitiveness to it. Although I am a big linux and OSS supporter, I am constantly amazed at the horrible or non-existant documentation that comes with OSS. Don't even get me started about installation procedures and dependancies. What linux needs to learn if they want a larger market penetration is that no one, other than those willing to devote lots of time to learning how it all works at a low level will adopt it. Make it easy for the masses. Make things work without having to dig around the internet for libraries and other dependancies. Give good documentation - not geek speak.
My
When distro makers license custom 3D drivers to go in their distributions as standard.
For example, ATI's 9800 driver installation process may suck (I still can't get them to work in any distro I've tried -- I am not a Linux expert by any stretch of the imagination), but if the distro makers want gamers and games developers to join them they're going to have to tackle this problem, even if it means coughing up cold hard cash.
William Gates was waiting in the wings, and he signed a deal to give IBM an operating system. Then, Gates bought PC-DOS from Seattle Computer Products. An engineer, Tim Paterson, at that company had stolen the ideas of CPM/86 and created a cheap clone of it. PC-DOS was that clone.
The rest is history. Kildall faded into oblivion, and most people have no idea that he is, in fact, the original inventor of the PC operating system. Meanwhile, billions of people instantly recognize Bill Gates as the "inventor" of the PC operating system. Gates got both the profits and the undeserved fame. Kildall got nothing and drowned in his own bitterness. In the later years of his life, he drank himself into alcoholism and eventually died in a bar.
The greatest insult was, ultimately, assigning the name "William H. Gates" to the Stanford Computer Science building. It should have been called the "Kildall Memorial Building".
I have the utmost respect for the volunteers in the open-source movement. I know that they will give credit where credit is due.
Why must Linux conquer in the end? Microsoft has billions in the warchest, countless corporate alliances, patents, and whatnot. The Beta and VHS discussion was not really about price or technological superiority. It was more about market clout. Sony didn't have wide market support for its format, other companies joined Matsushita to produce VHS systems, which eventually leveled the prices.
Microsoft continues to dominate with its ties to big OEMs, and on volume sales that these OEMs deal with, Microsoft remains a pretty competitive option for providing support, brand recognition, etc. Plus it doesn't hurt companies and customers that nearly every app written has a version for M$.
People have been claiming Microsoft dead for years now, just like Apple should have been dead a few years ago. It isn't going to happen. If anything, Microsoft will figure out how to buy Linux and jigger with it.
Nuclear war would really set back cable. - Ted Turner
It sure didn't help IBM. Remember, even by the early Windows days IBM was still the bigger company with far more weight to pull around, yet their dislike of the personal computing market (vs Microsoft's strategy of making the market even bigger - "I want my next computer preinstalled", which opened the market up to non-hobbyists; "Internet out of the box Windows 95" [bundled TCP/IP stack, dialup networking and browser, all of which used to be seperately purchased accessories], which let the PC directly compete in the new internet user market, much to the displease of Oracle and their vision of an internet dumb terminal, and various other visions like WebTV) doomed them to failure no matter how much money and "you can't go wrong with IBM" they had to throw around.
While capital and existing marketability help (Apple shows us the second can be leveraged quite a bit), the perhaps more correct factors are accessability and "it does it now, not later"
Ultimately, nobody gives a damn what OS is running. Looking at the historical ups and downs of DOS in and of itself is a useless exercise in intellectual masturbation.
People buy computers because of applications, not operating systems. Although Microsoft has managed to turn the OS into the application, the best, most solid systems respect the separation of OS and application. The only thing worthy of analysis relative to all this is the fact that MS's bloating up of DOS with a GUI and bundled apps ended up delivering them market share. But ultimately nobody ever chose a PC based on the OS... never, ever. They may have chosen a PC/OS based on the applications available for the OS, but with the exception of just a few, most computer users don't care what's under the hood as long as it gets them from point A to point B.
That's the way it was, is, and always will be. This holds true for everything from cell phones to console gaming. The system with the most versatility and functionality will win out in the absence of any domineering marketing campaign (which has a tendency of nullifying objectivity).
1. DOS was stable.
2. Because DOS was stable, developers were more comfortable developing applications for it.
3. Because there were more applications available for DOS, it garnered market share.
#2 is the key to it all... Had the first IBM PC been more closed like the Macintosh, the whole industry may have evolved differently. Had the TRS-80 been easier to hack and upgrade, we'd all probably be using TRSDOS v900. Had Apple not decided to turn their backs on the great original idea of embracing third party development when they went the route of Mac/Lisa, we'd all probably be using Apples. It's all about the applications, and how those who develop systems pander to the widest array of appdev talent.
What's funny is what's happened to the software development industry. I'd bet even today, 10+ years after the demise of DOS as a viable platform, there are still more DOS apps than Windows apps. So MS's pie-in-the-sky-OS idea has hurt the industry as a whole by crippling independent software development. That's what we can learn from this whole mess.
For those who are not aware, the genesis of DOS began in deceipt and treachery.
...most people have no idea that he is, in fact, the original inventor of the PC operating system.
You list no such deceit or treachery. All you list is Gary Kildall giving IBM the brushoff. Give credit where credit is due, the fault for CPM/86's failure in the mass market needs to be given to Mr. Kildall.
Then, Gates bought PC-DOS from Seattle Computer Products.
Nothing treacherous or deceitful about that.
An engineer, Tim Paterson, at that company had stolen the ideas of CPM/86 and created a cheap clone of it.
Thank you, Darl MacBride. Was there a patent on CPM/86? No, there wasn't, so no ideas where "stolen", because no ideas were sold. The implementation for CPM/86 itself (copyright) was not copied, modified or distributed. Hence, no "stolen" operating system.
He created a clone of CPM/86, in EXACTLY the same way Linus Torvalds created a clone of Minix/Unix. Why is Tim the thief but not Linus? Oh that's right, in your Darl MacBride world, Linus "stole" Unix. Sigh.
Inventor? What a load of crap! Next you'll be telling me that AT&T/USL/Caldera/SCO were the orginal inventors of Linux!
The greatest insult was, ultimately, assigning the name "William H. Gates" to the Stanford Computer Science building.
It was William H. Gates who donated money to Stanford, not Gary Kildall. Which is why Gar Kildall doesn't have a Stanford campus building named after him. This is so bloody obvious that only a total moron would question it.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Objectivity is like hens' teeth in the Linux community, so I suggest that most non-zealots are currently rolling their eyes.
-
Inventor of the term 'pardon my French'.
As it is this article is a factless, pointless rant about Microsoft. It doesn't answer the question it purports to ask ("What can the Linux world learn from Microsoft's past 25 years of unique experiences and domination?") at all. It does however spew every bit of geek lore that makes geeks feel all fuzzy inside knowing how 'superior' they are, regardless of the facts or relevance.
If it were posted on /., it would be modded right up to the stratosphere. As an example of Linux journalism - it's pretty sad.
My only question now is not if but when will Linux become the number one OS on earth?
Sometime after Mr. Koenning learns to write an editorial that reads less like a bad high school essay.
Hnm...I worked at Digital Research for three summers while I was in high school and college. I don't think what you're saying really holds water. CP/M was a nice enough OS in some ways, but it was painfully primitive by modern standards. Rumor had it that Kildall wrote the original CP/M over a weekend on a handy machine he had access to at the Naval Postgraduate School. It was a very basic, bare-bones OS, and it was by no means a state-of-the-art OS compared to, say, Unix; but that's not surprising, because it had to run in a 64k address space.
I also don't think it's accurate to portray Gary Kildall as a naive engineer who didn't know business. Digital Research was quite a successful business by the standards of a time when "microcomputer" users were mostly hobbyists. The story about his being out flying his plane when IBM showed up for the meeting is memorable, but probably untrue. A more believable version that I've heard is that IBM wanted Kildall and his wife to sign NDA's, and they refused. That wasn't as crazy as it might seem today. IBM had never even entered the microcomputer market. In the world of microcomputers, DRI was the big, established, dominant company, and IBM was trying to break in.
Actually, TFA isn't referring to CP/M at all:
- Look I say this with caution but sincerity since I began using DOS around the same time I had used UNIX and its variants, VMS, Stratus VOS and others.
VMS and Unix were indeed much more sophisticated than PC-DOS (or CP/M), but, uh, you couldn't run them in a 64k address space. People had made various trimmed-down 8-bit versions of Unix (proprietary, of course), but they weren't as sophiaticated as real Unix.From the article:
- My only question now is not if but when will Linux become the number one OS on earth?
Sorry, but this is really dopey. The historical stuff he's talking about isn't parallel to the modern situation at all. Some crucial differences:Find free books.
"Socially, the vacuum was created by greed.
...
A friend of mine told me he thinks that if Microsoft released just 10% of the roughly $2 BILLION in CASH (does not include other assets) to help curb diseases and help starvation, many people could be helped."
I was uneasy reading this OP/Ed piece. But once I got to the "social" problem, I stopped reading. So, what charitable organization has the one of the largest endowments in the world? That would be the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that has an endowment of roughly $29 billion. And what do they focus on? Global health problems like HIV/AIDS in Africa and education.
So only Microsoft should be held to this lofty standard of donating 10% of its cash to help the needy? Why not every company? Why shouldn't Ford donate 10% of its cash hoard (~$10 billion). What about Apple's $6 billion cash hoard? Or what about ordinary people? Why don't we require everyone to donate 10% of their savings account? Because Micro$oft is evil and should give back? As soon as I read this I knew this op/ed piece was a waste.
'Only question now is not if but when will Linux become the number one OS on earth?'"
Sorry but it is not going to happen. Linux needs to grow away from MS and stop comparing itself to it. The more I read about how Linux can compare to MS (let alone 25 years ago) just leads me to believe more and more that Linux will keep copying Windows until Microsoft goes out of business. What happens then?
If Linux is to come out on top it needs to be more innovative and less whiny about Microsoft. Seriously. The entire "whine" (TM) factor needs to go the way of the dodo. It is a great turnoff to those of us that are considering Linux but are reluctant to leave MS.
DEC guy?????
Your refering to Gary Kildall and thus to DR (Digital Research) of CP/M, and GEM fame, not to DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) of Vax, VMS, and PDP-11 fame.
And yes I'm that old. I do remember when all the above was "hot stuff."
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
OS/2 was ahead of it's time, containing many of the features that would later help Windows 95 (and no, it didn't come out too soon to take advantage of them), however it was hobbled by IBM's lack of internet in the home market.
First, while IBM had a full licence deal to use Windows 3.1 (a bit remaining from the whole OS2/NT partnership), they made no real effort to make it work well inside their fancy 32bit OS (starting Windows programs resulted in a copy of Windows 3.1 actually being booted up just for that program). The care taken for supporting old DOS programs (which they didn't need Microsoft's help for) was even worse - while Windows 95 needed tweaking options too, OS/2 presented users with a huge checklist that had to have been literally copied straight from the constant names in the C header file (the option names even included the underscore). The options where so badly labeled that even an expert had a hard time figuring out what each option did, let alone what option should be used to get a program to run. It would have taken less then a day for someone at IBM to actually enter user readable options to run DOS applications - but IBM didn't give a shit.
Now poor DOS and Windows 3.1 support wouldn't completely doom OS/2. Even Windows 95 only included the (not always working) support so that users and companies could migrate to native 32bit apps. What really helped kill OS/2 Warp was that IBM was still sitting on it's high horse, demanding developers pay them just for the privilege of writing native OS/2 [Warp] applications. In the end OS/2 Warp suffered the self inflicted fate of many of Microsoft's competitors - fantastic platform, pity I can't actually run anything on it (Apple, despite having a strong niche market, fell into much the same trap in the late 80s when it got full of itself and bullied it's own third party developers, reducing them from a 10% market share to just 3% in a matter of years)
Ummm. That is not always the case. I've read the Wealth of Nations several times(although not in the last couple of years). Adam Smith had a lot of insight into how a free market can always choose the best outcome automatically. Unfortunately, this was based on several assumptions, not the least of which is that a free market must exist for the best possible outcome to ensue.
In this case(as the FTA mentioned), Microsoft initially supplied the best product. This does not mean the supplied a superior product in a technical sense, but as a product, it excelled in the factors that meant the most at the time. After their MSDOS and later Windows became entirely ubiquitous, they had a base to leverage their power over the market. This position allowed them to force the market, and thusly the entire IT industry, to use their products over product that were truly superior.
Adam Smith was only correct with the assumption that consumers are free to choose their suppliers based on the factors that make them a good supplier. With MS's power, in many cases(especially businesses), the market is *not* free to choose other options. This has now, and will continue into the future, stagnated the industry. They are now trapped by the installed base of inferior products, upon which their ubiquity is actually what prevents them from changing suppliers to actually move to the better supplier.
Adam Smith wasn't wrong, he just assumed too much.
MikeD
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
IBM's $39.95 DOS while CP/M was $450 and UCSD p-System was $550. http://pcworld.about.com/magazine/1908p133id52503. htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_bloc
Linux based OS's are only as powerful as the people using them. If you don't know what you are doing then its not going to do a whole lot for you.
Unfortunately for your example, customers have many, many definitions of "in their own interest".
One may, for example, assume a "smart" customer would choose a superior OS like... OS X. Or Linix. Or whatever.
However, they also consider other questions like... How much it is? Is it already installed so I don't have to mess with it? Do I have to relearn everything? While it run my existing software? Will it work on my computer? Is Half-Life 2 available for it? And so on.
Thus what you might consider to be a "stupid" choice may make sense to those who make it, because that choice best reflected their needs, their budget, their skill level, and/or their ability to change.
Sum up the majority of those decisions, and you have the dominant market force.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I guess your right. Linux OS's just weren't meant to be run by computer illiterate people. I hope thats not the future of computer using world.
First, while IBM had a full licence deal to use Windows 3.1 (a bit remaining from the whole OS2/NT partnership), they made no real effort to make it work well inside their fancy 32bit OS (starting Windows programs resulted in a copy of Windows 3.1 actually being booted up just for that program).
This isn't correct, or rather, it's not an accurate representation of the effort IBM made with Windows for their WinOS2 subsystem.
IBM had access to the Windows source from Microsoft as part of the deal they cut during the breakup. In order to get it to run properly, they made some changes to the WinOS2 subsystem to allow it to run as a DPMI client under their new MVDM (Multiple Virtual DOS Machine) subsystem,they recompiled the code with Watcom's C compiler to improve performance, and they also redesigned the Windows video driver layer to allow a WinOS2 session to poke a hole in OS/2's native PM (Presentation Manager) desktop and display that WinOS2 session alongside the rest of the screen (which was controlled by PM).
The end result was called Seamless Windows, and was both fascinating in its flexibity and disconcerting in its mixing of two window APIs and two sets of Window frames and mouse cursors on the same desktop.
Not only did IBM tweak the video subsystem, but networking, sound, and other elements of the virtualized Windows environment were allowed to use the OS/2 networking, sound, and mouse services, resulting in a hybrid that ran Windows software quite nicely without having to have direct access to any of that hardware (or to use any Windows or DOS drivers).
The WinOS2 subsystem in OS/2 2.0 only supported Windows 3.0 programs (note that Windows 3.1 had been released in APril 1992, roughly the same time that OS/2 2.0 was finally released as a General Availability product), but OS/2 2.1 corrected that in May of 1993, and the so-called emulation of Windows 3.1 was so good between the 2.1 release and the release of Windows 95 that many software vendors saw no real point in supporting OS/2's own native API, and Microsoft chose to respond to this threat by creating over a dozen different "Win32S.dll" additions to the Windows 3.1 API to make Windows a moving target that IBM couldn't possibly keep up with.
The care taken for supporting old DOS programs (which they didn't need Microsoft's help for) was even worse - while Windows 95 needed tweaking options too, OS/2 presented users with a huge checklist that had to have been literally copied straight from the constant names in the C header file (the option names even included the underscore). The options where so badly labeled that even an expert had a hard time figuring out what each option did, let alone what option should be used to get a program to run.
This is total nonsense. The options presented for a VDM were numerous, that is true, but that's simply a reflection of the tremendous amount of flexibility that IBM designed into their MVDM subsystem (a subsystem which has survived almost unchanged though Warp 4 to eComStation today). The options were (and are) clearly labelled, had fairly extensive online help, and were quite clear to anyone familiar with the terminology and options that were present in a copy of actual DOS.
Think of a Windows 3.1 PIF file on steroids.
I'm saying this as a DOS user from 1988 through 1992 who switched to OS/2 2.0 in 1992 from a combination MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 environment for the main reason of running multiple virtual DOS machines for using my DOS software collection. I know the OS/2 VDM subsystem inside and out from a user perspective, and it was *trivial* for a knowledgable DOS user to master quickly.
DOS machines under OS/2, by default, used a virtual DOS kernel, not a real DOS kernel. That means they used an interface which looked like the real DOS interrupt interface, but which actually provided a link to OS/2's own system services. Because of this, a DOS program could usually use things like the mouse, soundcard, and networkin
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
OS/2 Warp 3.0 was released initially with two dialers -- one for IBM's internet service, and the other (called Dial Other Internet Providers, or DOIP) to connect with any other ISP who was using either SLIP or PPP for serial TCP/IP connections.
(Technically speaking, the original red-spine Warp 3.0 boxes were only shiopped with only SLIP support, but PPP support was a free download from IBM and could also be obtained on diskette).
At that point in time, very few home users had any need for network card support (home LANs were almost unheard of), and of course Windows 95 wasn't released until ten months later.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
More seriously, as a so-called MS Partner (heck, they gave me that one day, I still don't know why folks!) I'm a bit mystified. I've looked high and low in my XP and Server 2003 systems, even those bits of Longhorn they let me play with and I don't see any DOS. Something of a DOS emulator, but nothing on point. Oh well.
Not that I want DOS anyway. Given my druthers, I'd shoot this machine if someone would give me mi Amigas back!
DOS, blech!
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
VHS was better for a number of reasons, the most important being that you could actually fit a movie on one tape.
Really, I wish people would stop using it as an example of something it's not.
The problem with your plan is that is sounds fairly Anti-US, and as you give it, it comes from a US company. Pitching Linux soley as a way to "reduce dependency on the US" is selling it short.
I understand that many non US citizens have a great deal of anger or frustration over Microsoft and other US companies, but a sales pitch that is anti-US isn't going to gain the trust or participation of regular Joes here in the US. While Linux doesn't NEED the participation of American's to be successful (look at how many contributors are not American, most), it certainly is helpful. Even Linus lives here now, after all.
There are plenty of Americans like myself that are fed up with Microsoft's licensing plans and predatory methods. I would think you are better off by devising a plan that includes us, rather than isolates us by simply selling Linux as a way to get away from those bad old American companies.
Your suggestions is exactly what MS is hoping for: Pitching Linux not as a superior product at a better price, but as a knee jerk reaction to frustration about the US.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!