Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!apple!amdahl!drivax!alexande
From: alexande@drivax.UUCP (Mark Alexander)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Why unix doesn't catch on
Message-ID: <4666@drivax.UUCP>
Date: 19 May 89 16:33:03 GMT
References: <7632@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <256@jwt.UUCP> <2496@bucsb.UUCP> <274@tree.UUCP> <552@rna.UUCP> <13546@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <10571@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Reply-To: alexande@drivax.uucp.UUCP (Mark Alexander)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Bob-ist Temple of Monterey
Lines: 18

In article <10571@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> tim@cit-vax.UUCP (Timothy L. Kay) writes:
>According to the introduction to _Inside OS/2_,
>this guy Letwin (the author of the book and "architect" of OS/2) is
>somebody Bill Gates met at a hacker conference and hired immediately.
>I doubt that he has any formal OS experience.

The introduction does mention that Letwin wrote an operating system
for Heath.  Does that count as "formal OS experience?"  I think so.
This was probably HDOS, which, according to a friend who used it
for a while, was a pretty nice OS, quite a bit more advanced than
CP/M.  But CP/M was already in much wider use elsewhere, so HDOS
didn't catch on.  Sort of the same situation OS/2 is in right now,
except that OS/2 has better chance of catching on, like it or not.

It's a bit strange for me to defend a competitor in the OS market,
but I don't think Letwin deserves the insults.
-- 
Mark Alexander	(amdahl!drivax!alexande)