
Will Unix become the next MS-DOS? (1985) [video] - nfriedly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8G1qg99Kl4
======
aabajian
Everyone is saying "Nope". A couple events happened in the US in 2013/2014 -
The number of cell phones surpassed the number of computers, and the number of
smartphones surpassed the number of basic phones. Both iOS and Android are
Unix derivatives, so I'd say Unix _is_ winning the post-PC era.

~~~
pjmlp
Except that both lack UNIX userland, aren't POSIX compliant and have a sandbox
design.

~~~
the_why_of_y
... and ridiculous hard coded limits like 128 shared objects per process:

[http://androidxref.com/4.2_r1/xref/bionic/linker/linker.cpp#...](http://androidxref.com/4.2_r1/xref/bionic/linker/linker.cpp#SO_MAX)

This hilarious memset(3) bug was shipping for years:

[https://android-
review.googlesource.com/#patch,sidebyside,14...](https://android-
review.googlesource.com/#patch,sidebyside,14699,1,libc/memset.c)

Well, that's what you get when you NIH your libc...

~~~
SamReidHughes
A similar memset bug happened in glibc too.

------
cmrdporcupine
I always find it interesting to see these Computer Chronicles episodes with
Gary Kildall (yay!) hosting. I haven't watched the full episode yet, but it's
interesting since at the time his company was writing operating systems and
tools that competed with both Unix and Microsoft. I watched an episode where
they were comparing the Atari ST and Amiga, and I was impressed with how he
never showed bias despite the operating system on the ST having been written
by his company.

~~~
rasz_pl
Gary had himself to blame for failing to see the future of PC market. He build
his company on selling tens to hundreds (per week) copies of the $700 CP/M OS
used to run $700 dBase II on $10K S100 systems. When IBM entered the market
with PC/XT he insisted on pricing himself out of it at six times premium over
DOS, as if he didnt believe industry would move in just few years from
hundreds to almost hundred thousand boxes per week(1986).

As for him being impartial I wouldnt go so far. I also remember that episode
and how they showed bouncing ball on Atari with a stupid "see, we can do it
too" comment, totally ignoring the fact Atari 520ST was burning >80% CPU just
to blit that ball across the screen while Amiga did it all in hardware while
CPU was free to run other programs in full preemptive multitasking OS :)

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Who cares that the ST was burning CPU to do it, in the grand scheme of things
at that point in time all the fancy custom circuitry of the Amiga got them...
what... 3-4 years ahead of the curve at the cost of massive investment of R&D
and a price premium... ? By 1990 stock commodity PC graphics cards on a stock
x86 machine could outcompete the Amiga, and Commodore was totally unable to
pull another Jay Miner with its next chip set.

And multitasking on an 8mhz 68000 -- and with no memory protection in the
slightest -- was not much of a win. We had multitasking extensions for the ST,
too, and after fiddling with them for a while, the use cases were... unclear.
Without an MMU it was dubious.

In reality the ST was cheap competition for the Macintosh, not the Amiga. And
paired with a hi-res monitor and Atari's cheap laser printer and a copy of
Calamus it was a cuthroat priced, quality DTP workstation. Or in a studio as a
sequencer hooked up to a bank of synthesizers.

The Amiga found its niche in video applications... and games.

Anyways, this is all off topic to Gary Kildall :-)

~~~
scholia
_> Commodore was totally unable to pull another Jay Miner with its next chip
set._

Indeed, bearing in mind that Jay Miner had designed his previous chips for
Atari 8-bit computers, when he worked there. And that Commodore actually
bought the Amiga from Amiga Corp ;-)

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Just imagine the alternate history where Atari hadn't disappeared up its own
ass in the early 80s and all the amazing tech they were sitting on could have
shipped. Terrible internal management, amazing engineering. They had dual CPU
BSD workstation systems in development, the dual x86/6502 1450XL, the 128
oscillator AMY sound chip, Jay Miner/Amiga on contract for something new...
Then they went tits up, Commodore had internal fighting with Tramiel, Tramiel
and sons (and some ex-Commodore engineers) took the Atari name and some of its
assets, and Commodore mismanaged the Amiga (and the remaining 8-bit stuff) for
the next 5 years.

If all that engineering talent could have just gotten their shit together
instead of fighting over the table scraps... the PC industry would have been
far more interesting.

------
rasz_pl
So sad it didnt :( Mostly out of vendor greed, anything with Unix in name was
treated as $premium$.

On that note here is venix86, IBM XT/AT Unix variant, ready to run on
emulators:

[http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/2015/08/14/ventu...](http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/2015/08/14/venturcomm-
venix86-on-messmame/)

~~~
mmastrac
I loved seeing the name "winchester" for hard drives in those screenshots.
I've been renaming the HDD on every computer I've owned since the 80's to that
for kicks.

------
jsingleton
Along a similar line. Here's a very interesting show from 1978 about the "rise
of the microprocessor".

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01z4rrj/horizon-197719...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01z4rrj/horizon-19771978-now-
the-chips-are-down)

 _Edit: Here 's the show on YouTube for those that can't get iPlayer or don't
want to install Flash:_
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW5Fvk8FNOQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW5Fvk8FNOQ)

------
SG-
A lot of it's basic ideas did even with OS's that aren't Unix or Unix based.
Everything is multiuser, multitasking and network based now.

OSX along with iOS which controls a large part of the mobile/tablet. Android
has it's Linux roots too.

Windows NT set MS up to finally switch to a better OS and discard of DOS based
Windows.

The server space continues today to be run by Unix based OS's (Linux, BSD,
etc).

What's really interesting is that in 1985 when this video was out, Next was
just being formed and they were building NextStep.

------
platz
Unix is a user-hostile operating system!
[https://youtu.be/L8G1qg99Kl4?t=22m36s](https://youtu.be/L8G1qg99Kl4?t=22m36s)

------
voyou
Funnily, as it turned out, VMS became the new MS-DOS (well, kind of:
[http://windowsitpro.com/windows-client/windows-nt-and-vms-
re...](http://windowsitpro.com/windows-client/windows-nt-and-vms-rest-story) )

~~~
rbanffy
I like to think Windows actually was intended as a VMS parody. ;-)

~~~
wycats
VMS + 1 = WNT

------
digi_owl
I kinda like using a DOS-ish Linux install.

A "minimal" boot system that is highly user maintainable etc.

Gives a feeling of control that i kinda missed during the Windows years, where
everything was hidden behind cryptic registry entries and services.

------
yuhong
It is unfortunate MS turned OS/2 2.0 into an entire fiasco. There is a reason
why it is my favorite topic.

~~~
pmelendez
I believe that the fiasco started with IBM using LOC as a metric to pay MS.
It's like telling contractors that the will pay them better the most
inefficient they get.

~~~
yuhong
I know. I am talking about the ending of course.

------
zensavona
I guess not.

------
grabcocque
Nope.

