From: lowell@locus.com (Lowell Morrison)
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! : )
Organization: Locus Computing Corp, Los Angeles
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 22:35:07 GMT

In article <28DEC199213230314@moose.cccs.umn.edu> rwh@moose.cccs.umn.edu writes:
>In article <1992Dec23.170632.0207085@locus.com>, lowell@locus.com (Lowell Morrison) writes:
>> In article <1992Dec23.040854.17113@tc.cornell.edu> bai@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor) writes:
>> >In article <1992Dec22.214057.5756@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu> rick@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu (Richard Warner) writes:
>> >
>> >>I think you should dabble a bit more in economics.  MS has had ZERO to
>> >>do with the down-pricing of computers.  They have had little to
>> >>do with OS's, also.  DOS was a hack, procured from another company
>> >>which in turn borrowed it from a third.  The most major change was
>> >>the 'UNIX-ification' of DOS, i.e., they borrowed heavily from another
>> >>OS.  NT will be the first truly MS-written OS.  Even that has
>> >>borrowed heavily from others (Mach from CMU, etc.).
>> >
>> >I do not care if DOS was a hack or not. The point is that it was 
>> >_needed_ by people to operate their computers, and MS was the only
>> >company that provided it to them by the time they needed it. 
>> Dov, you need to study your history more.  There were three operating
>> systems offered by IBM when the PC was introduced.  The $49 PC-DOS,
>> The $395 CP/M-86, and Something called P-System (I don't remember
>> the price).  And of course, Unix was offered for it as well.  The
>> point being that IBM had a vested interest in lo-balling DOS (they thought
>> that they had paid for it's development).  And DOS won on low cost alone,
>> CP/M-86 was arguably a better OS (no inherant 640K barrier).
>
>Really, and exactly how did CP/M-86 deal with the presence of the video
>memory, disk controller ROM, BIOS ROM and ROM BASIC in the area between
>704K and 1M? Sheez, the 640K limit is a problem with the IBM design, not
>a decision by MS.  MS-DOS on the old Victor 9000 left something like 800K
>free because the ROMs were all squeezed into the upper part of the 1M
>address space of the 8086.  Keep in mind that the address registers on the
>808x are only 20-bits wide providing for a maximum of 1M of addressable
>memory.  As one who worked with the old Osborne shadow ROM BIOS, I was glad
>that IBM at least left their ROM in an easy to access location.
It has been a number of years, but the techniques of Shadowing the Rom
and/or Jump Tables has been around for a lot of years.  I remember a 
CP/M System on a Z80 addressing 12 megs of ram without any problems
in 1980, and that is supposed to be impossible if you talk to some
"Experts" in Z80 technology. Yes, Adam went and did a number of things
with the Osborne that were less than wonderful.  Of course, I remember
some people who gave it Graphics, when that was impossible also.

>
>
>> >
>> Because, others have chalanged Microsoft, only to be litigated or 
>> advertized into the grave.
>
>Enlighten us!  Who, when, what product?
You just need to look at the fortunes of Digital Research (thank god Novell
finally purchased them).  And you already asked for information from
one gentleman about how MS littigated or at least threatened his company
into submission.  So, there are several, though my memory is hazy of 
particulars.
P-System Bit the Dust (USD) in large part because of MS-burrying them
with advertizing.



>
>--rick
>

--Lowell Morrison
--Uncle Wolf