Path: utzoo!telly!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!sun!ecotopia!raburns From: raburns%ecotopia@Sun.COM (Randy Burns) Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss Subject: Re: NAND -- Not ANother DOS Message-ID: <128965@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> Date: 8 Dec 89 18:40:13 GMT References: Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM Reply-To: raburns@sun.UUCP (Randy Burns) Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View Lines: 33 In article bschwart@elbereth.rutgers.edu (some great stormfowl, whenever he has walked his while) writes: > >, >get 'em where it _really_ hurts. UN*X is elite, but MiSeryDOS >is ubiquitous. How's about if the FSF or some other outfit >(say the "FPW" I suggest in another article) takes on a "NAND" >project--"Not ANother DOS"? Something *FREE* that runs >MSDOS I personally think this is really quite an excellent idea, There are a *lot* of vendors that would jump at the chance to bundle even a *minimal* OS with there hardware. Secondly, the job will have to be done eventually if GNU is ever to use the wide variety of DOS programs that are out there right now. >and OS/2 programs. I'd put this at quite a lower priority. Something with a C compiler and a C++ >compiler and a BASIC interpreter and a BASIC compiler and a whole >slew of UN*X-like utilities. We've got the hard disk space, >you know. This might actually advance the industry in a signifcant way, particularly if there is some kind of nice windowing environment that would enable a pre-installed system to do something useful rapidly-Probably some kind of cross between MS Windows and X would be nice so that it could be binary compatible with Windows and support at least some limited X functionality (memory might be tight here). Even if the customers wanted to run straight, proprietary software in their shop, having something installed on the system when delivered could ease the setup process significantly.