
What was the role of MS-DOS in Windows 95? - gaika
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2007/12/24/6849530.aspx
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henning
The ridiculous thing about Raymond Chen's writing is we're supposed to find
his tales of software mediocrity charming and enlightening.

~~~
tx
Yes, making an OS with pre-emptive multi-tasking with a modern graphical UI
that could be installed (and be fast) on an affordable family PC with just 4MB
of RAM, is "software mediocrity". The stories of "old glory days" should be
reserved strictly to true geniuses who wouldn't touch anything cheaper than
10K UNIX workstations.

I used to work under a CTO who's been in OS/2 kernel group at the time of
their cooperation with MS. He's still claiming them all idiots and arrogant
pricks, only "their" OS/2 eventually worked out, but "his" OS/2 silently died.

You can't beat at the same time the mighty gorilla (IBM) and ambitious
uprising young startup (Apple) on marketing or luck alone, you'd need an
engineering arm slightly above mediocre level.

So... I call BS on your comment. I bet Microsoft in the 80s was more exciting
place to be than Google is today.

~~~
henning
Much of what you're referring to is Microsoft in the 80s, while much of what
Chen writes about is from the 90s.

Windows as a platform is an epic achievement in software: they managed to
create a commercially successful OS that's pretty stable/usable/responsive
even in the face of a combinatorial explosion of possible off-the-shelf
hardware configurations.

However, it used to crash all the time and it still has a terrible security
model. It wasn't pre-emptive until at least Windows 95, after a decade of
work, when a typical PC had much more than 4 MB RAM. The hard work of
designing a good, modern GUI was done by PARC and Apple; Microsoft just had to
reimplement it for different hardware.

I don't think Windows was good until Windows NT 4/Windows 2000.

Don't act like Microsoft's success is entirely due to engineering, nothing to
do with IBM's retarded decisionmaking, nothing to do with Bill Gates's
extralegal bullying, and nothing to do with John Sculley's mismanagement of
Apple.

Getting back to Raymond Chen, he finds Windows' annoying quirks and flaws to
be amusing. He also acts like a condescending jerk a fair amount of the time
by disparaging users or developers.

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deathbyzen
So I could play Rise of The Triad.

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raganwald
I cannot forecast to you the role of MS-DOS in Windows 95. It is a hack
wrapped in a kludge inside a compatibility box.

~~~
gaika
"Windows is a 32-bit extension to a 16-bit graphical shell for an 8-bit
operating system originally coded for a 4-bit microprocessor by a 2-bit
company that can't stand 1 bit of competition."

