Re: My First Computer (was Computing Editorial)

["Ross Simpson" <yeah_whatever>]

"Glen" <lpepicel@nycap.rr.com> wrote in message...

> Funny thing is I am one of the few people who acutally has degrees in
> both History and Computer Science (come on how many can there be).
>
> Yeah well sorry-- I've been use Unix and Linux servers and Linux pcs for
> a long time.  I wasn't aware that one had to know the MS product line to
> be competent.  In fact IHMO the less MS software you use the more likely
> your stuff is to actually work.

Actually, I don't know if your implying that CP/M is M$, it isn't. Digital
Research created it :-) It's been argued that early DOS was the result of a
hacked version of CP/M 2.2 I believe. Not that Micro$-off did that, they
just presumably brought this hacked copy from the people who hacked it. If
Gary Kildall's wife did a deal with IBM (like she should of), then there's a
better chance you would of heard of Digital Research.

If you've heard of DR-DOS (Digital Research's version of DOS) for the IBM,
then that was the product which you could say evolved from CP/M-86 (still
there were quite a few OSes in between both of them).

They also wrote GEM for the IBM's (it was also made for Atari ST - however
I'm not sure if DR wrote it for it or not). Nowadays it's been released as
open source. Back in it's day (1985) is was quite fast (even on old XTs) &
was well in advance to the Windoze Operating Environment, but was badly
crippled after Apple sued them & left it in a not so good state.

Ross.