Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!sugar!peter From: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: 8-bit death Message-ID: <1991Apr30.113402.2522@sugar.hackercorp.com> Date: 30 Apr 91 11:34:02 GMT References: <1991Apr27.155155.12730@marlin.jcu.edu.au> <1991Apr28.122439.13393@sugar.hackercorp.com> <1991Apr28.203012.2793@kessner.denver.co.us> Organization: Sugar Land Unix -- Houston, TX Lines: 35 In article <1991Apr28.203012.2793@kessner.denver.co.us> david@kessner.denver.co.us (David Kessner) writes: > Now, I will be the _LAST_ person to extole the virtues of MS-DOS, but lets > get our facts straight, will we? OK, you go read the message I just wrote to Peter Dinda. You been eating up the propoganda just fine too... > MS-DOS is a _16_ bit operating system. While it may be similar to CPM I > doubt that it is a "staight copy" since CPM was strictly a 8 bit OS, and > MS-DOS clearly has support for the _16_BIT_REGISTERS_ that the CPU has. Oh right! The 16-bit registers! I'd suggest you look at the 1802, a 4/8 bit microprocessor that comes with 16 16-bit registers. For that matter, what do you think HL is? As for being a copy of CP/M... that was not only intentional it was stated as a virtue of the machine by IBM back in 1981. All us CP/M hackers were puking, but the business community ate it up by god. > That is _my_ definition of a 16 bit operating system-- the number of bits > in the registers that it actually _uses_. Fine. Then I've *written* a 16-bit operating system. So I'm qualified to speak on such issues, and MS-DOS isn't one. > Now, even though it is a 16 bit OS, it does not mean that Bill Gates didn't > give it the "Look and Feel like CP/M". :) Bill Gates didn't give it anything. He didn't write line 1 of the code in QDOS. He just took an existing program (written at Seattle Computer) and filed off the serial numbers. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' .