Windows vs. Linux

[Gerhard Fiedler]

On 2006-08-02 12:41:44, Alex Martelli wrote:

> Microsoft did *NOT* write DOS 

Well, they didn't write most of DOS 1.0. But it seems they did write (or at
least specify) most if not all of the rest up to DOS 6.22 or so. Which is
possibly considerable.

> Part of the CP/M compatibility did include the use of / as flag-indicator
> (the use of \r+\n as line ending also comes from CP/M -- in turn, CP/M
> had aped these traits from some DEC minicomputer operating systems).

At the time, probably pretty good reasons for using the slash as command
line flag indicator.

> Internally yes (indeed, they developed Xenix, before later selling it to
> SCO), but that does not mean that "DOS was written on Xenix" because DOS
> was *not* written in Microsoft, as above mentioned.

I probably should have said "everything between DOS 1.0 and DOS 6.22" was
written on Xenix, to be more precise :)

And, as an aside, I'm sure that MS would have sold more of their Xenix if
the market had wanted it. But the market really wanted DOS...

Gerhard