vthrc@uqvax.cc.uq.oz.au (Danny Thomas) (12/19/90)
Could someone jog my memory regarding the origins of MSDOS. I seem to
recall that the initial version was bought by Microsoft from Seattle
Computer Co(?), who were one of the first companies to ship an 8086 board
for the S100 bus. I think there was a letter or perhaps part of an article
quite a few years ago, probably in Byte or Dr Dobbs, in which the author
of the Seattle product explained the history. I've probably still got the
article but it would take a long time to find so I would particularly
appreciate references.
The latest issue of Australian Microsoft's Communique magazine
(Dec/Jan 1990) has the first of a two part story on "The History of DOS"
in which Seattle wasn't mentioned. My memory isn't as good as it used to
be and maybe the product I'm thinking of lead to CP/M 86 or something
else, but if my recollection holds I find it irritating that Microsoft is
not giving due credit to the original author(s) of arguably their most
significant product.
I wouldn't want to give the impression that MS ripped off the author
in the deal and I'm sure MS could have written something similar, but
presumably one of the reasons MS purchased the Seattle software was to
exploit a window of opportunity that may have disappeared by the time MS
wrote their own, given their lack of expertise in the area at that time
*PS* could anyone supply me with a photocopy of the article in Dr
Dobbs(?) which gave one side of the story on why IBM adopted MS-DOS over
Digital Research's offering; the head of DR (GK) went flying or something
similar(?).
One of the interesting aspects of the article is the influence IBM had in
the development of MSDOS; these were new to me, though not in the least
surprising. It almost sounds like an apology from Microsoft P sorry guys,
we would like to have done things properly but IBM wouldn't let us.
[p20] "In this file structure, all the subdirectories and the
filename in a path were separated from one another by backslash
characters, which represented the only anomaly in the XENIX/MS-DOS
system of hierarchical files. XENIX used a forward slash as a
separator, but versions 1.x of MS-DOS already used the forward slash
for switches in the command line, so Microsoft at IBM's request,
decided to use the backslash as the separator instead."
and also
[p21] "... 2.11 became the standard version for all non-IBM customers
running any form of MS-DOS in the 2.x series. IBM's primary interest
for the next major release of MS-DOS was networking. Microsoft would have
preferred to pursue multi-tasking as the next stage in the development
of MS-DOS. So as soon as version 2.0 was released, the MS-DOS team began
work on a networking version (3.0) of the operating system."
The title referred to bias and I'll leave a quote which I may send to the
PostScript news group along with a discussion, May 1990 edition of Communique article about System 7
[p14] Outline Fonts
Apple's promise to supply outline fonts with the new system will
HAMMER ANOTHER NAIL INTO THE COFFIN OF THE ALREADY FALTERING
POSTSCRIPT. POSTSCRIPT USES BITMAP FONTS - [my emphasis, goes
onto talk about problems with (screen) fonts, no mention of ATM]
Please don't respond to this quote, you'd have to see it in context
Danny Thomas
Vision, Touch and Hearing Research Centre
University of Queensland