On Thu, 2005-03-24 at 21:21 +0200, Peter wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 24 Mar 2005, Gerhard Fiedler wrote:
> 
> > Peter wrote:
> >
> >>> So in a way, it was necessary to go through Windows to get to Linux... :)
> >>
> >> No, they could have gone straight there if they had developed Xenix
> >> instead of DOS and built Windows on top of a Xenix descendent.
> >
> > I don't think Xenix was an option (in terms of resource needs) for all the
> > early PC owners that began to make the PC /the/ standard platform.
> 
> Xenix ran fine (albeit slowly) on average hardware. By the time everyone 
> had a i386 machine and a graphics card Xenix could have taken over from 
> DOS. At the same time, X workstations ran on hardware marginally better 
> than the i386 pcs everyone had, with some form of unix os as base. 
> Instead, they built Windows on DOS, and later they parted in unfriendly 
> terms from OS2. We know the rest of the story. It took 20 years for DOS 
> to become XP (via NT which was not DOS based).

And the reason is VERY clear: backwards compatibility. Look at the x86
architecture, we are still using CPUs that can run code developed for
the first IBM PC. The fact that the OS has remained as compatible for so
long is NO surprise.

Given the alternatives at the time I'd say DOS was the better choice, it
was resource friendly enough to be able to run on very minimal hardware.
The fact that everything later was an evolution or kludge of DOS was no
surprise, backwards compatibility is king in the world of PCs, and THAT
is a GOOD thing. TTYL
 

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