Kevanf1 wrote:
Hmm.... I'll await the howls of protest but surely not. We are talking about the PC here not a workstation linked to a mainframe. The mainframe/workstation set up is different to the original PC that came from IBM. I know that there were earlier incarnations of the small form factor computer but for all intent and purpose the PC as we know it came about because of IBM's offerings. IBM first used a DOS for those PC's. Now, feel free to correct me but didn't Microsoft either write that software or come in very soon after and started to write the software? So, really, the Microsoft way is actually the initial way of having an operating system. Linux, as a Unix way of doing things came about a few years later.
MS didn't write DOS, they bought it after they sold it to IBM. It came from a company called Seattle Computer Products, who wrote QDOS as a development system for their hardware, while waiting for CP/M-86 to come out. The DOS calls in v1, look suspiciously like CP/M calls for that reason.
Please note that nowhere have I said the Microsoft way is the correct way :-) Just because they were first does not mean they were, or indeed, are correct in their method of running an operating system on the PC. I believe the *nix way is far better. I imagine IBM couldn't afford the then available Unix on their new range of PC's because of prohibitive costs?
There were originally three operating systems for the IBM PC, DOS, CP/M-86 and "P-code". I haven't heard much about P-code, but CP/M, even on the 8080 & Z80, was in many respects better than DOS. For example, there was even a multiuser version of it.