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From: shadow AT shadowgard DOT com
To: opendos AT delorie DOT com
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 19:35:51 -0800
Subject: Re: FreeDos, twenty four years later...
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On 9 Jan 2004 at 0:41, Peter Buzza Smith wrote:

> 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?

Actually, he started with Microsoft BASIC for old 
systems like the IMSAI and Altair. I've got a 
reprint of the issue of Dr. Dobbs where he rants and 
raves about it being pirated.

He was makimg tons of money from overpriced 
compilers long before he bought the rights to 86-DOS 
from Seattle Computing.

> 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.

DOS uses the same conventions about many devices. 
Inherited from CP.M and Unix.

Try accessing LPT, PRN, CON, AUX and a number of 
others. Also note than any of the above can be 
accessed as <drive>\DEV\<device> even if there's no 
\Dev directory on the system. :-)

> 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!

Oh?

> 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?

C is a problem language. It tends to encourage 
certain *bad* programming practices. Like unchecked 
type casting.


--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at krypton dot rain dot com