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Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 00:41:36 -0500
From: Peter Buzza Smith <pbsmith AT log DOT on DOT ca>
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To: opendos AT delorie DOT com
Subject: FreeDos, twenty four years later...
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Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com

Robert Mergy Sr. wrote:

> DOS = Disk Operating System and is a markup language to operate a disk 
> drive...

I've never heard of an OS called a "markup language," which is a term 
usually used for formatting text (like TEX and HTML). But, yes, an OS is 
a whole new human language. All the command-line DOS utilities, taken 
together, constituted a true language. And DOS's true founder, Gary 
Kildall, had visionary ideas about what direction such a language 
could/should take. I can't say the same thing about Mr. Gates. Need we 
remind people Gates started his fortune by buying a hacked copy of CP/M 
to sell to IBM?

It is true that UNIX (and hence, Linux) also constituted a useful 
computer language. But I, personally, find a lot of UNIX conventions 
unappealing. It's like comparing French to English. Or Mandarin to 
Basque. Each language has its own benefits and flaws. One serious flaw 
of UNIX was that it was developed during an early stage of computing, 
with reference to tape drives, devices as subdirectories... and other 
rather eccentric habits. The main reason I subscribe to the OpenDOS 
newsgroup is that, for me, the old DOS was both easy to learn and also 
very *simple* to manage. One only has to play around with one of the 
current flavours of UNIX/Linux for, say, twenty minutes, before one 
realizes one isn't in Kansas anymore. UNIX makes some very simple things 
a lot more complicated!

I'm not a psychic, but if Gary Kildall was alive today, I suspect he'd 
have taken our OpenDOS to new territories. Unfortunately, he is no 
longer with us so we will have to imagine what kind of operating system 
he would now be showing us (probably a hybrid of DOS, Netware, 
DESQview/X, and EOS). As for computer languages, maybe we should follow 
UNIX and simply standardize on plain C?

:-)