From: mpd@netcom.com (Mike Duvos)
Date: Thu, 2 May 1996 18:13:44 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: The Joy of Java
In-Reply-To: <5y40mD297w165w@bwalk.dm.com>
Message-ID: <199605020542.WAA17712@netcom8.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



> My recollection is that when IBM first started selling IBM PC, they offered
> a choice of (at least) 3 operating systems right from the start: UCSD p-system,
> CP/M-86 or PC-DOS.  IBM didn't do anything to prompte PC-DOS over the other
> two. It won fair and square in the marketplace because the other two were
> even worse crap. (Later versions of CP/M-86 got much better.)

When the first IBM PC came out, I ran QNX on it, a Unix clone from a
company called "Quantum."  It did full pre-emptive multitasking, had 
a nice C compiler, and shared code between tasks, all on a little 8088
with two floppies and no hard drive and 768k of ram. 

We even had "talk", and I could chat with people who dialed the modem
I had hooked to my serial port, and they could log in and do work on 
my system at the same time I did.  

When MS-DOS first appeared, the quantum people kindly provided DOS 
emulation for QNX and I could simply type "DOS", and read DOS disks and
run DOS programs.  

Ultimately, however, as new and "improved" versions of DOS appeared, with
obtuse features, and almost every app using them, I finally 
bowed to the march of progress and installed DOS 3.1 on my system.

A giant leap backwards into the dark ages. 

QNX is still around, by the way, and I believe its primary market
is now embedded real-time systems, where its highly responsive and
optimized kernel can be exploited. 

Whenever I think of how nice QNX was, I recall Bill Gates' comment
about the true power in the software industry being not technical
excellence, but being big and strong enough to set industry-wide
standards and enforce them by fiat.

It's now over 10 years later, and DOS still can't multitask.  Obviously
there's no accounting for taste.

--
     Mike Duvos         $    PGP 2.6 Public Key available     $
     mpd@netcom.com     $    via Finger.                      $