From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Subject: Re: Windows 3.1 an "operating system"?
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 16:52:28 GMT

In <1992Nov5.063357.19069@csusac.csus.edu> cs139121@athena.ecs.csus.edu (Todd Kepus) writes:

>In article <1992Nov4.201521.4630@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>>In <kewsuLO00WB946OFFB@andrew.cmu.edu> jyri+@CMU.EDU (Jyri Virkki) writes:
>>
>>>strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) writes:
>>>> 
>>>> Ok. Now try this: if you want to know if MSDOS is an OS or not, 
>>>> remove the boot sector from your harddisk, turn your computer
>>>> off, and then try installing MSDOS, without reinstalling that boot
>>>> sector.  Doesn't work either. 
>>
>>>What in the world is this supposed to prove? Of course something won't
>>>work if you corrupt it. That's a novel def. of OS to me: An OS is only
>>>an OS if it is able to boot with a corrputed boot sector. I guess
>>>there are no OS'es ever made then.
>>
>>No, he's just applying the same silly logic that is being used to say
>>that Windows isn't an OS STRICTLY BECAUSE IT ISN'T BOOTABLE BUT MUST
>>BE LOADED BY DOS.
>If this is a silly argument, then why doesn't Microsoft simply allow
>Windows 3.1 to be boot by disk without the need for DOS.  I mean, it
>seems to me that everybody that claims that WIN 3.1 is an operating
>system states that it doesn't need DOS.  Well, if it doesn't need DOS,
>then why does it still need it to boot?

Well, first of all, you mistate what people are saying.  Windows still
uses the MS-DOS file management stuff.  Second of all, wherever did
you get the silly idea that an operating system had to be able to boot
from the bare hardware?

>>
>>>Can you run and utilize your computer with just the BIOS? No, you need
>>>to boot an OS, whether it be msdos, linux, whatever (but not windows;
>>>you can't have the bios boot windows, you need an os in the middle).
>>>So the BIOS is not an OS. You see, there are many different layers of
>>>interface between the user and the hardware. Bootstrap and hardware
>>>level support routines in ROM (the BIOS), an OS (msdos, linux, os/2,
>>>etc), then an optional graphical interface (windows, X, etc) and then
>>>your apps. While there can be some overlap in functionality, you can't
>>>take any entity from one level perform on another level. Windows is
>>>clearly not an OS, it's on level 3 of the above scale while OS's are
>>>level 2.
>>
>>This is simply not correct.  This would make CMS on an IBM mainframe
>>an 'application' -- it certainly won't boot without VM running.  It
>>would also make ANYTHING running on top of a Mach microkernel
>>(including OS/2) just an application.  Windows isn't just a GUI.  You
>>should check out what is going on in the software (compare X to
>>Windows, for example).
>>
>>-- 
>>"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
>> in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.



-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.