The Mac is Dead! Long Live the Wintel PC! was Apple ahead of schedule 3111

Hayes)

Actually, "DOS" is "command.com", "msdos.sys", and "io.sys" combined. "command.com" is just the command interpreter (shell). msdos.sys and io.sys are the "kernal".

"QDOS" was indeed "Quick and Dirty Operating System", created by Seattle Micro.

Microsoft bought it honestly from Seattle Micro, improved it, added various user-level modules, and called it "MS-DOS" (Microsoft Disk Operating System). They later licensed it to IBM, which called it "IBM-DOS". Also, while we're at it, Microsoft also wrote Apple's first BASIC language interpreter, as well as their own, and IBM's. Not many Macdroids even know this, or want it known, for that matter.

They may also have written the first Apple structured BASIC, if I remember correctly.

In fact, a BASIC interpreter was Microsoft's first successful venture as a programming house. They sold it on paper-tape to "Personal Computer" hobbyists who owned IMSAIs (the FIRST "personal computer", Appleidiots' claims notwithstanding) and other pioneer "Personal Computers".

Later on, Digital Rights didn't want to license it, so they cloned it -- a "nicer" word for "backward-engineered it" (ran the b-code through a disbuttembler, found out how each low-level call operated, then re-wrote the buttembly code differently, in such a way that no one could say they "copied" it, using different addressing) and called it "DR-DOS". Of course, Digital Rights did add a few goodies, like an expanded command interpreter, pre-emptive mulbreastasking, and improved memory management. But basically, it was still a rip off of MS-DOS. Many believe (and not without merit) it surpbutted MS-DOS in elegance and usability. Since I never used it, I cannot comment on it beyond that.

At NO TIME in this process did Microsoft claim authorship of the original product. At NO TIME has Microsoft EVER stolen ANYTHING from ANYONE. They might have had very overbearing licensing terms, but they NEVER stole a thing from anyone. Every company, ever technology, they aquired they acquired honestly, or developed themselves in-house.

They copied good ideas. Of course they did. Good ideas are good ideas, no matter who first has them. All programmers copy all other programmers, just like all comics copy all other comics. While fully-developed ideas are patentable, the ideas themselves are not.

Microsoft's genius is in being able to take undeveloped ideas and develop them into patentable forms, then promote them to the general public and corporations. No one should fault them for that. They are idiots to try, and only show their own jealousy if they do. Human jealousy is a bad thing, folks.

Since you don't mention msdos.sys, command.com, or io.sys, I buttume you have no idea what MS-DOS is, either.

Actually, Windows for Workgroups was the pre-cursor to NT. It added high-level networking extensions onto Windows, plus Win32 (the 32-bit rewrite of Win16). While it did "run on DOS", it did it more as a higher-level extension of DOS, not as a shell on top of DOS, as the earlier iterations of Windows were. But it still needed DOS to perform many low-level functions. When Win32 was added, Microsoft's future as a top-level programming house was buttured forever. Win32 enabled Microsoft to leave DOS behind, and embark on its NT journey, which ends forever with Vista.

In Windows XP, command.com has been replaced by cmd.exe, which came over from NT 4.x. The kernal is no longer msdos.sys and io.sys. Those three together make up MS-DOS. Anything else was a module of DOS, until Windows for Workgroups and NT.

One WILL find command.com in a folder of ~-Windows, however. But it is NOT the command interpreter for Windows anymore. It is included mostly to be able to create backward-compatible start floppies for earlier versions of Windows and DOS, and for some legacy apps. ALL legacy DOS calls are filtered through the Windows 32 API and kernal.

Windows XP does not even parse autoexec.bat or config.sys (although it can. But none of the information is useful to XP). In fact, these two files are zero-length files, found in the root folder of the System volume. Windows XP no longer uses DOS in any way. Even the so-called "DOS command prompt" is emulated by Windows. Opening an XP "DOS command prompt" does NOT give one access to MS-DOS. It is NOT possible to reboot XP into real-mode MS-DOS (unless, of course, one uses an MS-DOS boot floppy. But one would no longer be "In Windows" from then on, until it was removed and he rebooted into XP, since XP no longer contains MS-DOS.)

When one opens such a command prompt, it says "Microsoft Windows XP 5.1", not "Microsoft DOS x.x".

When one runs a legacy app, a virtual "DOS box" is created in the common memory pool, being buttigned 1 mb. When legacy apps make DOS (low-level system) calls, those calls are pbutted on to the Win32 API, which translates them into Win32 calls, and pbuttes them to the XP kernal, which performs the low-level functions, just as io.sys and msdos.sys used to with Windows versions previous to NT, and which command.com did when it translated them into b-code and pbutted to the MS-DOS kernal modules, io.sys and msdos.sys.

That is MS-DOS and Windows 9x (in a nutshell).

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Donald L McDaniel Please Reply to the Original Thread. ========================================================