john@stiatl.UUCP (John DeArmond) (11/11/88)
I've been watching this discussion on the various incompatibilities with DOS and MKS and the thought just struck me. Why does not Mortise Kern go ahead and turn MKS into a standalone OS? Hmmmmm... You guys already have about 80% of it done with the shell and utilities. Why not put together a nice little multitasking, single user kernel to run below the shell. Maybe we could get a discussion going here and maybe if there's enough interest, Gerry could make it happen. How 'bout it guys.. interested in getting away from Microsloth pseudo-dos? Lets make some noise. John De Armond Sales Technologies, Inc. Atlanta, GA ...!gatech!stiatl!john
pavlov@hscfvax.harvard.edu (G.Pavlov) (11/13/88)
In article <1396@stiatl.UUCP>, john@stiatl.UUCP (John DeArmond) writes: > ........................................... Why does not Mortise Kern > go ahead and turn MKS into a standalone OS? Hmmmmm... You guys already > have about 80% of it done with the shell and utilities. Why not put together > a nice little multitasking, single user kernel to run below the shell. > I don't think that what has been done is anywhere close to "80%" of what would be needed. The shell and utilities are the least of it. greg pavlov, fstrf, amherst, ny
alex@mks.UUCP (Alex White) (11/13/88)
In article <1396@stiatl.UUCP>, john@stiatl.UUCP (John DeArmond) writes: > I've been watching this discussion on the various incompatibilities with > DOS and MKS and the thought just struck me. Why does not Mortise Kern > go ahead and turn MKS into a standalone OS? Hmmmmm... You guys already i) You have to be kidding yourself if you think this would ever be commercially viable. ii) Any idea of how many different inconsistent incompatible illegal stupid etc. way various programs use DOS? iii) Its been done. (e.g. Wendin). We haven't noticed any particular success by them. iv) Its already being done by microsoft. Its called OS/2. Now OS/2 is pretty bad, but a lot of the work that went into it went into the silly compatability box, which is just what we'd have to do as well.
wheels@mks.UUCP (Gerry Wheeler) (11/14/88)
In article <1396@stiatl.UUCP>, john@stiatl.UUCP (John DeArmond) writes: > Why does not Mortise Kern > go ahead and turn MKS into a standalone OS? You guys already > have about 80% of it done with the shell and utilities. Why not put together > a nice little multitasking, single user kernel to run below the shell. Well, it's nice to know that people think we could whip up a new OS in a week or two :-), but I think it would really take a lot of work. You may not be pleased with MS-DOS, but it does represent many man-years (people-years?) of effort. So far, we've resisted all temptations to make any changes to the DOS kernel -- all our programs run on stock versions of MS-DOS. I think we'll continue to work in that direction. And, the same will likely be true for OS/2 -- it may be big, but if we run on the stock version everyone will be able to use our utilities. Making changes to the OS would likely create a lot of problems. -- Gerry Wheeler Phone: (519)884-2251 Mortice Kern Systems Inc. UUCP: uunet!watmath!mks!wheels 35 King St. North BIX: join mks Waterloo, Ontario N2J 2W9 CompuServe: 73260,1043
kiy@pte.UUCP (Kevin Young) (11/15/88)
In article <1396@stiatl.UUCP> john@stiatl.UUCP (John DeArmond) writes: >I've been watching this discussion on the various incompatibilities with >DOS and MKS and the thought just struck me. Why does not Mortise Kern >go ahead and turn MKS into a standalone OS? Hmmmmm... You guys already >have about 80% of it done with the shell and utilities. Why not put together >a nice little multitasking, single user kernel to run below the shell. > Hear, hear. I'll take a dozen right now. It could even be called MkS-DOS. Kevin -- >|< Kevin Young uunet!edsews!rphroy!pte!kiy Precise Technology & Electronics, Inc. (The opinions expressed here are true, the names have been changed to protect the idiots.)
keithe@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson) (11/15/88)
In article <1396@stiatl.UUCP> john@stiatl.UUCP (John DeArmond) writes: >I've been watching this discussion on the various incompatibilities with >DOS and MKS and the thought just struck me. Why does not Mortise Kern >go ahead and turn MKS into a standalone OS? Hmmmmm... You guys already >have about 80% of it done with the shell and utilities. Why not put together >a nice little multitasking, single user kernel to run below the shell. > >Maybe we could get a discussion going here and maybe if there's enough >interest, Gerry could make it happen. How 'bout it guys.. interested in >getting away from Microsloth pseudo-dos? Lets make some noise. > > Without a doubt one of the best ideas ever to come down usenet! Go for it, Gerry. Do a '286 version separate from the '386 version, though, so you can do the '386 version right and keep the '286 cretinisms out of an otherwise potentially fantastic product. I think the key is Multitasking SINGLE USER. I don't WANT other users on my machine! It's a waste of resources (your programming time and my machine) to include that capability in my desktop computing environment. If I want multi-user I'll go with multi-machines. Oh, yeah: include SCSI and RLL capability, too. Ethernet if you can. (Or contract it out if you can't.) Print spooler(s), too. And do a "tar" while you're at it, eh? keith
jes@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Joe Smith) (11/15/88)
In article <4255@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM> keithe@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson) writes: >In article <1396@stiatl.UUCP> john@stiatl.UUCP (John DeArmond) writes: >>I've been watching this discussion on the various incompatibilities with >>DOS and MKS and the thought just struck me. Why does not Mortise Kern >>go ahead and turn MKS into a standalone OS? Hmmmmm... You guys already >>have about 80% of it done with the shell and utilities. Why not put together >>a nice little multitasking, single user kernel to run below the shell. >> >Without a doubt one of the best ideas ever to come down usenet! ^^^^ - read worst >And do a "tar" while you're at it, eh? ^^^ - get John Gilmore's Gnu tar, it runs will on MS-DOS and with the MKS shell you can do things like tar cvf - dirname | compress -c > filename in a more elegant way. The reason why the MKS-DOS is a bad idea is: 1) The reason most of us like MKS is, it allows us to pretend that we have a rational machine under our fingertips. 2) The reason MKS is successful is in part because they have brought us a large number of Un*x tools and a shell that works. If you want more why not get the real thing. It is available and even runs with fair performance on 286s and 386s. 3) It has taken Microsoft years of fiddling to get OS2 to the point where it is slow and cumbersome. Oh, and not just years, but many many man hours. So, why take away from the standardization which may eventually come from sysV Un*x by inventing yet another multitasking os. 4) Besides, you can remove all the passwds from a personal un*x machine except your own, and no one will accuse you of having a multiuser-multitasking system. It would only be multiuser if you wanted it to be. So, I have an asbestos suit ready for anyone who wishs to argue this point more. But lets give a good thing (unix) a fair chance. It is a lot better than MS-DOS can ever by as far as productivity tools are considered, and graphical interfaces are going to blow the OS/2 presentation manager out of the water. I have been a dedicated MKS user for several years, and this product has been a god send to MS-DOS computing, but the answer is not to rebuild un*x, but to buy the un*x that exsists and put it on hardware that will run it. Frank Kolakowski ____________________________________________________________________________ |c/o jes@eniac.seas.upenn.edu || Univ. of Penna. | |kolakowski%c.chem.upenn.edu@relay.upenn.edu || Dept of Chemistry | |bcooperman.kolakowski@bionet-20.arpa || 231 South 34th St. | |AT&T: 1-215-898-2927 || Phila, PA 19104 | ============================================================================= Joe Smith jes@eniac.seas.upenn.edu University of Pennsylvania Department of Chemistry 231 S. 34th Street Philadelphia, PA 19104 (215) 898-4797