If not "Unix variant" then what would you call Linux then? Linux isn't the only Unix knock off, there are the purer variants, such as FreeBSD and related.
If you're going to claim that the Windows NT kernel was VMS "stolen by David Culter" then it would be equally valid to say that Linus Torvalds stole MINIX from Andrew Tanenbaum.
PS: Culter was the head of 20 folks from DEC to work on Windows NT, all of whom worked on VMS.
For many years now, MSFT's annual report has warned about the competative threat that Linux poses, including desktop, server and embedded platforms. There are several direct mentions of this in Microsoft's 2005 report, availble here:
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/reports/ar05/staticversion/10k_fr_bus_06.html
Old news.
When IE had much less market share than NS Navigator, there was less support (percentage-wise) for existing standards, specifically HTML 3.0 and 3.2. Microsoft led the way to get CSS and later, the DOM, adopted as W3C recommendations.
Ever since IE earned it's dominant market share, subsequent versions become more and more compilant with more and more standards.
The argument that IE is "bad" because it's standards support is slightly less than Opera or Firefox is ludicris. Real-world users don't choose browsers based on such arcane things such as the CSS boxing model and whether or not one browser does padding one way, or another.
True, and I've experimented with turning off the wavy lines, but then I forgot to actually do the check.
I like going into a "mode" where I'm specifically working on correcting grammar and spelling.
I use it all the time. It improves my writing measurably. I use Microsoft Word as my e-mail editor and only have a few of the style check options turned off (contractions, passive sentences and use of first person).
You're right that the red and green wavy lines distract me, but I force myself to ignore them until I'm done and then go into a grammar checking mode.
I find that it picks up a dropped or repeated word, notes when I use end of sentence prepositions, and when I confuse verbs.
At first it was flagging a lot of my writting as passive, and it is, but that's my personal style, so I turned that option off. It also flagged contractions, which I don't want in my Word documents, but don't mind in e-mail, so I turned that off for the email template.
Generally, then benefits outweigh the problems for me.
Figures that/. would make such a big deal out of a what amounts to a press release from the marketing director for the defacto Linux promotion group.
For years the Linux zealots have conducted a compaign against Windows; how it crashes all the time, how buggy it is. But often these opinions are past on old versions and when they are not, the zealots ignore the shortcomings of the various Linux distributions. I love the qualified quote from Pratt:
"Linux is absolutely a secure operating system to the extent that it does not suffer any more or less than any other mature enterprise operating system. The 2.6 kernel is a key step forward in terms of boosting security and reliability,"
Yeah, but companies don't buy kernels, they buy operating systems, platforms and solutions on which to base their information infrastucture on.
Loved it! Wrote a number of little programs using BASIC and shell scripts. It was my first introduction to UNIX. But I was just a kid at the time, I wasn't doing anything serious. I tried porting my BBS from Microsoft BASIC in ROM, but didn't have enough floppy drives to do it all.
I just purchased an old CoCo on eBay and am waiting for it to arrive. I'm going to load up OS-9 on it and reminisce.
I agree entirely with the first part of your reply.
I'm not sure you've got your history right. Xenix came out in '83
It's my understanding that Microsoft shipped XENIX for the PDP-11 in November 1980 and versions for the Z-80 followed in 1981. I do not know when the 8086/8088 version was available - certainly it wasn't a priority at the time.
...testing a system based on OS9, a Unix like operating system for excellent little 6809 processor... It was available in '79, and was, for the environment it was in, amazingly good,
I did a lot of work on OS9 around 1980-81 on a souped up CoCo. I'm a huge fan of it and the 6809 chip - which less face it, was probably a better architecture than the 16-bit 8088.
In part, I think your post goes astray in forgetting too that IBM chose to deliver an unerpowered machine in order to avoid competing with its own midrange machines.
Thats a valid point. Certainly IBM management didn't have high expectations for the machine - they predicted 200,000 sales over a few years, and got that number within a few months.
I think IBM was simply trying to one-up the machines that were available from Radio Shack, Commodore, Atari and others. No one thought it would become the basis for the majority of computing for the next 25 years.
Is WINE a rip off of Windows? Is Linux 1.0 a rip-off of UNIX?
If you say yes, then okay, QDOS (not MS-DOS) was a rip off of CP/M. I guess I define rip-off as having stolen source code and making wholesale copies of routines.
To my knowledge that was not done. QDOS presented a super set of APIs and the functionality was designed to match the functionality in CP/M-80 as closely as possible.
I see that as being very similar to what Linux did, which I don't consider a rip-off of UNIX.
It has been a while, but as I remember it, everything I had under CP/M was upward compatible under CP/M-86,
I dunno how this could be true, given the vast differences in memory model, register usage etc. It may have been easy to port to CP/M-86, but it would have been a port, requiring changes.
...and none of it compatible under MS-DOS. The system calls were different between MS-DOS and CP/M-86.
How can MS-DOS be called a clone at the same time others are saying that the system calls were different?
It's my opinion that the original QDOS tried to match the system calls of 8-bit CP/M. By the time MS-DOS 1.14 was given to IBM as PC-DOS 1.0, there were a number of differences.
The goal was never to copy, but to make it easy to port.
I know for a fact CP/M-86 was infinitely more powerful and versatile than MS-DOS.
So others have said, but again, at the v1.0 stage, what was better? I'm geniunuely curious - what features did CP/M-86 have that PC-DOS 1.0 didn't have and vice versa?
If you want, I'll provide a credible source for any statement you challenge.
What programming langauges did MS-DOS have?
Macro Assembly, Pascal, COBOL, FORTRAN and BASIC compilers were languages available from Microsoft when the IBM PC was introduced. Very soon afterwards, C and Forth were available. In addition, interpreted Microsoft BASIC was available in ROM.
Conversely, at the same time, CP/M-86 had PL/I, but not a BASIC compiler ready (CBASIC wasn't available until later).
Oh you mean MS-BASIC? BASIC a programming language?
The year is 1981. IBM is creating a computer for the masses - not computing professionals. The selling point for every microcomputer on the market at the time was support for BASIC - was it built in ROM? Was it complete? Was it licensed Microsoft BASIC?
28 years later, we can scoff at BASIC, but it was the most popular language available for all the microcomputers of the time.
You're forgetting your history. When IBM went with Microsoft, they didn't even have an OS, they bought DOS
I'm well aware of that. They licensed and later purchased 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products and spent months modifying it to run on the IBM prototype hardware and BIOS. A number of improvements were made, and changes as requested by IBM. As for the history - here's a time line of selected events:
First half 1979 - Seattle Computer Products programmer Tim Paterson works with Microsoft on getting standalone BASIC running on a prototype S-100 CPU card with a Intel 8086. The prototype was shown at the 1979 National Computer Conference in the in the joint Microsoft/SCP/Lifeboat booth.
Late 1979-early 1980 - Patterson hired as consultant to Microsoft for a Z-80 based SoftCard for the Apple II. Originally planned to run Microsoft's languages, it eventually hosted 8-bit CP/M. Needing a license to CP/M, Gates offers royalties to Gary Kildall and Digital Research. Instead, they wanted a flat fee of $75k over several payments for CP/M distribution license. Gates pays $50k cash upfront and goes on to sell 100,000 SoftCard's.
Sometime 1980 - Microsoft licenses UNIX from AT&T. Due to AT&T prohibiting the name UNIX being using in OEM versions, Microsoft calls its version XENIX. Gates feels like XENIX can be the springboard to 16-bit machines. The first version is scheduled for November to run on DEC PDP-11 machines.
April 1980 - Waiting for CP/M-86 to become available, SCP's Paterson starts creating what he calls QDOS - for Quick and Dirty Operating System. It's needed for their 8086-based S-100 CPU card. Instead of CP/M's disk format, Patterson implements a file allocation table (FAT) file system similar to what he saw in Microsoft BASIC. Makes a number of cosmetic changes and borrows ideas from North Star DOS and CDOS - a clone of CP/M from Cromemco.
July 22, 1980 - IBM meets with Gates/Ballmer regarding getting languages available for an undisclosed 16-bit computer, unofficially codenamed "The Manhattan Project" and later "Project Chess". IBM leaves impressed with Gates and Microsoft.
August 6, 1980 - IBM's Bill Lowe presents to his Corporate Management Committee the specs that would become the IBM PC - Intel 8088 16-bit processor (with 8-bit data bus), 16K RAM, 32K ROM, five slot open bus, printer and joystick ports.
August 21, 1980 - IBM meets with Gates and Microsoft again, under non-disclosure to reveal the PC project plans and to get Microsoft to supply languages for it. In addition, they needed an operating system. They knew that XENIX wouldn't run on the low-end machine, and they asked if Microsoft could use its existing license for CP/M (for the SoftCard)? Gates explained they didn't have sub-licensing rights to CP/M, but that it wouldn't work on the 8088 anyway. DR was working on a 16-bit version, but CP/M-86 was already long overdue at this point. Gates calls Gary Kildall on behalf of IBM and arranges a meeting between DR and
Nonsense. There were plenty of real OSs around at the time, running on similar processors. The prime example is CP/M.
CP/M-86 wasn't available until after IBM committed to shipping MS-DOS licensed from Microsoft.
MS-DOS dominated the market for one reason and for one reason only -- IBM chose it as the main OS for the PC
You make it sound as if customers dind't have a choice. IBM announced and made available three operating systems - PC-DOS, CP/M-86 and UCSD P-System.
Because Microsoft delivered a working product a year in advance, IBM wrote it's own programs around it. Also, DR charged a much higher licensing fee for CP/M-86, which IBM sold for $240. But there were no programming languages available for it yet and very little software had been ported over from CP/M to the CP/M-86.
If IBM made PC-DOS as "the main OS" for the PC, it was because it was available earlier and had lots of programming languages available. Customers also liked it because it was cheaper.
since the lawsuit is over whether QDOS was a "slapdash clone" of CP/M. Which, in point of fact, it was.
A clone with a completely different file system? There were plenty of CP/M clones in those days, QDOS, later 86-DOS, later MS-DOS wasn't really a clone. It just offered a familar API set for programs porting from CP/M.
the biggest of which was using one of the worst OSs ever made. Not by today's standards, but by the standards then.
Okay, well, what would have been better then for a macine with a 16-bit processor with a 8-bit bus and 16K of memory? Microsoft originally wanted to license XENIX to IBM, but it would never work on that type of machine.
In no way did Tim Patterson rip off CP/M. It is exceedingly clear from several respecible published sources that DR shot themselves in the foot time and time again, while Microsoft delievered not only a operating system, but the programming languages for it - which was the real draw.
I want to hear from Slashdot readers who have quit jobs or turned down offered jobs because it was not what they wanted to do. Why did you do it?
I recently left a good paying job for several reasons. Mostly because I decided that I likely wasn't going to be successful in the position. I can point fingers at management, but also at myself.
In 2000 I formally retired for about 3 years at the age of 35. I knew I'd have to work again, but I had the finaical means to not work and I enjoyed it immensely. Maybe I'm spoiled now, but I'm not afraid to leave a job - or turn down a potential job if I feel it won't work out.
And how did it turn out? Did you get to do what you wanted to do, are you still looking, or did you come back begging for another chance?
For the most part still looking - but the journey is the reward. Once a long time ago in my early 20's did I go begging for another chance and got it - only to be laid off 3 months latter and the company was gone within a year.
I don't feel like I have enough control over the product when I use Microsoft programming environments. My company was bought recently, and is in the process of becoming a C# VisualStudio shop. I said thanks, but no thanks and left.
C# has a lot of advantages and I use it regularly as my language of choice. I was a hardcore ANSI C bit-twiddler for years, writing in-line assembly code as needed, but the code would often have subtle problems with pointer math, buffer overruns, etc. C# gives me the syntax I'm familar with, with a clean object orientation. If I truly need the performance of C/C++, I can code modules in that language.
In fact, I much prefer C# and the.NET Framework over ATL and MFC which, by comparsion, were clunky hacks.
Am I a fool for giving up steady work and good pay?
No, you've gained valuable experience - whether it's positive or negative. Remember, it's just a job. Best wishes!
Slashdot Mirror
If not "Unix variant" then what would you call Linux then? Linux isn't the only Unix knock off, there are the purer variants, such as FreeBSD and related. If you're going to claim that the Windows NT kernel was VMS "stolen by David Culter" then it would be equally valid to say that Linus Torvalds stole MINIX from Andrew Tanenbaum. PS: Culter was the head of 20 folks from DEC to work on Windows NT, all of whom worked on VMS.
For many years now, MSFT's annual report has warned about the competative threat that Linux poses, including desktop, server and embedded platforms. There are several direct mentions of this in Microsoft's 2005 report, availble here: http://www.microsoft.com/msft/reports/ar05/staticversion/10k_fr_bus_06.html Old news.
When IE had much less market share than NS Navigator, there was less support (percentage-wise) for existing standards, specifically HTML 3.0 and 3.2. Microsoft led the way to get CSS and later, the DOM, adopted as W3C recommendations. Ever since IE earned it's dominant market share, subsequent versions become more and more compilant with more and more standards. The argument that IE is "bad" because it's standards support is slightly less than Opera or Firefox is ludicris. Real-world users don't choose browsers based on such arcane things such as the CSS boxing model and whether or not one browser does padding one way, or another.
Does somebody knows whether MSIE and MSN collaborate the same way?
Imagine what the uproar would be if IE and MSN Search implemented this feature first.
True, and I've experimented with turning off the wavy lines, but then I forgot to actually do the check. I like going into a "mode" where I'm specifically working on correcting grammar and spelling.
I use it all the time. It improves my writing measurably. I use Microsoft Word as my e-mail editor and only have a few of the style check options turned off (contractions, passive sentences and use of first person).
You're right that the red and green wavy lines distract me, but I force myself to ignore them until I'm done and then go into a grammar checking mode.
I find that it picks up a dropped or repeated word, notes when I use end of sentence prepositions, and when I confuse verbs.
At first it was flagging a lot of my writting as passive, and it is, but that's my personal style, so I turned that option off. It also flagged contractions, which I don't want in my Word documents, but don't mind in e-mail, so I turned that off for the email template.
Generally, then benefits outweigh the problems for me.
PowerPoint, FrontPage and Visio were intergrated very successfully into the Microsoft Office Product Suite.
Figures that /. would make such a big deal out of a what amounts to a press release from the marketing director for the defacto Linux promotion group.
For years the Linux zealots have conducted a compaign against Windows; how it crashes all the time, how buggy it is. But often these opinions are past on old versions and when they are not, the zealots ignore the shortcomings of the various Linux distributions. I love the qualified quote from Pratt:
"Linux is absolutely a secure operating system to the extent that it does not suffer any more or less than any other mature enterprise operating system. The 2.6 kernel is a key step forward in terms of boosting security and reliability,"
Yeah, but companies don't buy kernels, they buy operating systems, platforms and solutions on which to base their information infrastucture on.
Wake up and smell the competition Linux.
Sadly yes.
So, what did you think of OS9?
Loved it! Wrote a number of little programs using BASIC and shell scripts. It was my first introduction to UNIX. But I was just a kid at the time, I wasn't doing anything serious. I tried porting my BBS from Microsoft BASIC in ROM, but didn't have enough floppy drives to do it all.
I just purchased an old CoCo on eBay and am waiting for it to arrive. I'm going to load up OS-9 on it and reminisce.
I'm not sure you've got your history right. Xenix came out in '83
It's my understanding that Microsoft shipped XENIX for the PDP-11 in November 1980 and versions for the Z-80 followed in 1981. I do not know when the 8086/8088 version was available - certainly it wasn't a priority at the time.
I did a lot of work on OS9 around 1980-81 on a souped up CoCo. I'm a huge fan of it and the 6809 chip - which less face it, was probably a better architecture than the 16-bit 8088.
In part, I think your post goes astray in forgetting too that IBM chose to deliver an unerpowered machine in order to avoid competing with its own midrange machines.
Thats a valid point. Certainly IBM management didn't have high expectations for the machine - they predicted 200,000 sales over a few years, and got that number within a few months.
I think IBM was simply trying to one-up the machines that were available from Radio Shack, Commodore, Atari and others. No one thought it would become the basis for the majority of computing for the next 25 years.
Is WINE a rip off of Windows? Is Linux 1.0 a rip-off of UNIX?
If you say yes, then okay, QDOS (not MS-DOS) was a rip off of CP/M. I guess I define rip-off as having stolen source code and making wholesale copies of routines.
To my knowledge that was not done. QDOS presented a super set of APIs and the functionality was designed to match the functionality in CP/M-80 as closely as possible.
I see that as being very similar to what Linux did, which I don't consider a rip-off of UNIX.
Thanks for a great reply.
Digital Research had plenty of languages: Pl/1, CBASIC, CB86, Pascal, and Fortran. All were available on CP/M-80 or 86.
I didn't say that there weren't any languages available for CP/M at all - just for CP/M-86 initially.
By the time CP/M-86 started shipping, it was several months after PC-DOS and it's languages were available. That was my point.
CP/M-80 would not run on the IBM PC, and is irrevelant.
It has been a while, but as I remember it, everything I had under CP/M was upward compatible under CP/M-86,
I dunno how this could be true, given the vast differences in memory model, register usage etc. It may have been easy to port to CP/M-86, but it would have been a port, requiring changes.
How can MS-DOS be called a clone at the same time others are saying that the system calls were different?
It's my opinion that the original QDOS tried to match the system calls of 8-bit CP/M. By the time MS-DOS 1.14 was given to IBM as PC-DOS 1.0, there were a number of differences.
The goal was never to copy, but to make it easy to port.
I know for a fact CP/M-86 was infinitely more powerful and versatile than MS-DOS.
So others have said, but again, at the v1.0 stage, what was better? I'm geniunuely curious - what features did CP/M-86 have that PC-DOS 1.0 didn't have and vice versa?
If you want, I'll provide a credible source for any statement you challenge. What programming langauges did MS-DOS have?
Macro Assembly, Pascal, COBOL, FORTRAN and BASIC compilers were languages available from Microsoft when the IBM PC was introduced. Very soon afterwards, C and Forth were available. In addition, interpreted Microsoft BASIC was available in ROM.
Conversely, at the same time, CP/M-86 had PL/I, but not a BASIC compiler ready (CBASIC wasn't available until later).
Oh you mean MS-BASIC? BASIC a programming language?
The year is 1981. IBM is creating a computer for the masses - not computing professionals. The selling point for every microcomputer on the market at the time was support for BASIC - was it built in ROM? Was it complete? Was it licensed Microsoft BASIC?
28 years later, we can scoff at BASIC, but it was the most popular language available for all the microcomputers of the time.
You're forgetting your history. When IBM went with Microsoft, they didn't even have an OS, they bought DOS
I'm well aware of that. They licensed and later purchased 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products and spent months modifying it to run on the IBM prototype hardware and BIOS. A number of improvements were made, and changes as requested by IBM. As for the history - here's a time line of selected events:
CP/M-86 wasn't available until after IBM committed to shipping MS-DOS licensed from Microsoft.
MS-DOS dominated the market for one reason and for one reason only -- IBM chose it as the main OS for the PC
You make it sound as if customers dind't have a choice. IBM announced and made available three operating systems - PC-DOS, CP/M-86 and UCSD P-System.
Because Microsoft delivered a working product a year in advance, IBM wrote it's own programs around it. Also, DR charged a much higher licensing fee for CP/M-86, which IBM sold for $240. But there were no programming languages available for it yet and very little software had been ported over from CP/M to the CP/M-86.
If IBM made PC-DOS as "the main OS" for the PC, it was because it was available earlier and had lots of programming languages available. Customers also liked it because it was cheaper.
since the lawsuit is over whether QDOS was a "slapdash clone" of CP/M. Which, in point of fact, it was.
A clone with a completely different file system? There were plenty of CP/M clones in those days, QDOS, later 86-DOS, later MS-DOS wasn't really a clone. It just offered a familar API set for programs porting from CP/M.
the biggest of which was using one of the worst OSs ever made. Not by today's standards, but by the standards then.
Okay, well, what would have been better then for a macine with a 16-bit processor with a 8-bit bus and 16K of memory? Microsoft originally wanted to license XENIX to IBM, but it would never work on that type of machine.
In no way did Tim Patterson rip off CP/M. It is exceedingly clear from several respecible published sources that DR shot themselves in the foot time and time again, while Microsoft delievered not only a operating system, but the programming languages for it - which was the real draw.
I recently left a good paying job for several reasons. Mostly because I decided that I likely wasn't going to be successful in the position. I can point fingers at management, but also at myself.
In 2000 I formally retired for about 3 years at the age of 35. I knew I'd have to work again, but I had the finaical means to not work and I enjoyed it immensely. Maybe I'm spoiled now, but I'm not afraid to leave a job - or turn down a potential job if I feel it won't work out.
For the most part still looking - but the journey is the reward. Once a long time ago in my early 20's did I go begging for another chance and got it - only to be laid off 3 months latter and the company was gone within a year.
C# has a lot of advantages and I use it regularly as my language of choice. I was a hardcore ANSI C bit-twiddler for years, writing in-line assembly code as needed, but the code would often have subtle problems with pointer math, buffer overruns, etc. C# gives me the syntax I'm familar with, with a clean object orientation. If I truly need the performance of C/C++, I can code modules in that language.
In fact, I much prefer C# and the .NET Framework over ATL and MFC which, by comparsion, were clunky hacks.
No, you've gained valuable experience - whether it's positive or negative. Remember, it's just a job. Best wishes!