leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) (07/19/89)
everett@hpcvlx.HP.COM (Everett Kaser) writes:
<I think you're on shaky ground, because the string starting in the 4th byte of
<the boot sector is the OEM identification string; i.e. there are going to be
<a significant number of different ones, up to (but not likely) as many as there
<are OEM's of MS-DOS. On the HP Vectra PC that I'm using with MS-DOS 3.3 (OEM'd
<from Microsoft by HP) the ID string says "IBM 3.3". I suspect that many
<clone manufacturers that supply MS-DOS use the "IBM" string in order to be as
<compatable as possible with IBM. But I know that on a couple of HP's earlier
<computers, different strings were placed there.
The reason so many OEMs use IBM as the ID string is thaty IBM in it's
typically obnoxious way, released several versions of PC-DOS that
*refused* to read a disk if the ID didn't say IBM!!!
Isn't it nice to see how IBBM feels about the competition? :-(
--
Leonard Erickson ...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]
"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools.
Let's start with typewriters." -- Solomon Short