Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.20001029142403.0095bc40@earthlink.net> X-Sender: presp AT earthlink DOT net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 14:24:03 -0800 To: opendos AT delorie DOT com From: Preston Petty Subject: Re: A little history In-Reply-To: <39FC9639.A6EFAE6B@2net.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com Errors-To: nobody AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: opendos AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk Thanks Chris. Nicely done. Brings back alot of memories and mysteries. Sure did like that DRDOS5-6. Pres At 09:27 PM 10/29/00 +0000, you wrote: >Hi, > >We seem to periodically run into the history of operating systems in >this list, and it saddens me that so little is remembered. Perhaps it is >just due to the youth of the contributors (which in itself is a good >thing). So, although this is a bit off topic, I would like to present >the following brief history - as it applies to the PC. > >In the beginning there was CP/M. Developed by Gary Kildall in 1974, it >was based on some work he had been doing at Intel for their development >systems (the PL/M language which ran on the Intel o/s called ISIS: I >used it in the late 70's). CP/M was the least operating system you could >have which would allow you to boot from an 8 inch floppy and get a >command prompt. Kildall had also done a lot of work with DEC systems, >and so he borrowed some ideas from them. The most obvious was "PIP" >(Peripheral Interchange Program) which does the job everyone else calls >COPY. Note that here is NO derivation from UNIX here, or even any >indication that Kildall was aware of it. CP/M became hugely popular on >all 8080 and Z80 based personal computers. > >Then in 1980 it all started to go wrong. The exact details are shrouded >in the mists of time and the dust of lawyers offices, but the result was >that IBM, unsatisfied with DR's incomplete and behind schedule CPM/86 >took up with the company that was supplying their Basic interpreter - >Microsoft. MS purchased rights to a CP/M clone from Seattle Computer >Products for $50,000 and re-worked it along side IBM engineers to >produce PCDOS (the IBM version) and MS-DOS (the generic version). It is >said the MS made nothing much out of the deal with IBM but banked on >there being a hardware clone market to sell to - which was smart or >lucky depending on your world view. > >Having entered the o/s market, MS wanted a multiuser offering as well. >In about 1982 (I'm guessing here) they bought a UNIX system 7 license >from Bell Labs and marketed it as Xenix. It wasn't Intel only: I used >Xenix on a PDP-11 in 1984 or there abouts. Here in the UK Xenix was >distributed by Logica. Before long MS decided to get out of that game >and sold the whole thing to SCO who used it to create the x86 port that >we all know. For many years it was practically the only x86 Unix around, >and also had the largest installed base of any Unix flavour. So that is >how the Microsoft copyrights turn up in Xenix code. Just to finish off >this strand quickly, the three main species of Unix: BSD (aka SunOS), >AT&T System V and SCO Xenix were merged together in about 1988. The open >source movement was founded around GNU in the mid 80's and with the >Linux kernel of the 90's provide the GNU/Linux distributions that we >know and love. The latest is that SCO have sold off all the Unixware and >Xenix business to Caldera Systems, so of course there is convergence >between SCO Unix and GNU/Linux. > >>From 1981 onwards, MS dominated the PC o/s market. Version 1 was shipped >with the original PC. Version 2.0 came with the XT and added a >hierarchical file system which was inspired by Unix, but had no >architectural similarities. It was at this point they chose the "wrong" >sort of slash: '\' instead of '/' which bugs everyone who switches >between both systems to this day. In 1984 came 3.0 to support the PC/AT >and a little later v 3.1 with network support for Microsoft's feeble >first file server. Things start to get interesting again in 1986. In >that year I saw a system called 286DOS (or DOS286 perhaps). MS had >worked out how to switch a 286 from protected mode back to real mode and >so create a system that could run DOS programs as well as new protected >mode programs. They sold it to IBM and in 1987 IBM and MS launched it >together as OS/2. MS was never that committed to OS/2 it now turns out. >In fact I attended a Microsoft briefing in about 1988 when they said >quite plainly that they were going to torpedo OS/2. Which they did in >1990 with Windows 3.0. > >Meanwhile, DR's operating system business declined. To compensate they >switched emphasis to GUIs and produced GEM in 1985 ish (this is not my >strong area so I may be out by a year or so). I remember evaluating GEM >and Windows 1.0 in 1986 and thinking that GEM was far better. However DR >managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory a second time when >Apple sued them for "look and feel" similarities with the Mac (which was >a bit of a cheek since the Mac is a complete rip off of the Xerox Star). >DR played by the rules, changed the look and feel and lost the market. >MS ignored the rules, won their case against Apple and took the market. >Life is just not fair. > >Another episode demonstrates this. The DR operating systems group did >not die (otherwise I would not be writing to this mail list). CP/M 86 >became more and more DOS like. Around about 1988 DR created a clone of >MS-DOS 3.3, shipped to a small number of OEM's as DR DOS 3.31 (note no >hyphen; that was added much later by Caldera). Successive OEM versions >were shipped up to v 3.41. Then in 1990 DR made the innovative step of >selling DR DOS 5.0 retail. So far as I know all previous DOS versions >from MS, IBM and DR had been OEM only. MS were caught completely >unawares as people dumped MS-DOS 3 and the horrendous version 4 for DR >DOS 5.0. The motivation was basically the much improved memory >management. It took MS a full year to respond. The MS-DOS development >group had been disbanded and had to be re-built from scratch. However >MS-DOS 5.0 was shipped both retail and OEM, and they began to regain >market share. The unfair part of this story is in the OEM sector, where >DR stood to make a killing: OEM sales are almost pure profit, whereas >with retail you have to ship actual boxes around. MS used a series of >very dodgy practices to block DR from this part of the market (details >too gory to go into here). So for the third time success was snatched >away from them. > >Around 1990 Microsoft started work on the other operating system they >always wanted. They recruited the VMS development team from DEC - headed >by Dave Cutler if I remember correctly. This was released in 1993(?) as >"New Technology" Windows, or Windows NT. Hence NT has some similarities >in architecture to VMS, but of course no shared code. NT has been a bit >of a mixed blessing for MS, I think. It has forced them to duplicate a >lot of effort maintaining two o/s strands with a lot of overlap on the >desktop market. And still the DOS based strand refuses to die, because >even Windows ME still has MS-DOS, and therefore a faint echo of CP/M, at >its core. > >And that is as much as I am prepared to write in one go. If you managed >to follow me this far, thank you for sticking with it. If there are any >inaccuracies in the above please let me know. > >Chris. > > >