On Mon, 4 Feb 2019, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: I'd like to see some evidence for that; without Unix, what would we be running now? I doubt whether it would've been Linux, there being no inspiration for it... My vague (and rough) recollection is CP/M -> DOS -> Windows. Only inasmuch as it has directories, users, and permissions (which any semi-decent OS would have anyway)... Admittedly I have never compromised my integrity by using/programming it, so I am willing to be corrected. And yes, I know about POSIX compatibility, but so is Linux, and it's different enough from Unix to be damned annoying. -- Dave

On 4 Feb 2019 09:07 +1100, from dave(a)horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall): CP/M is (was?) to MS-DOS roughly as UNIX is to Linux (the overall system, not referring to just the kernel); a source of inspiration, but not a direct ancestor. Then let's not get into the Windows / OS/2 / Windows NT confusion, product line splits/merges and rebranding. IIRC, at least until Windows 3.0 (1990), and possibly until Windows 95 when Microsoft did their best to hide the troubled history, Windows applications were _expected_ to ultimately rely on the old-style MS-DOS API for basic operating system services like file management, and could choose to (or were expected to) call those APIs directly instead of going through the Windows API. For a long time, Windows was just a fancy (some would almost certainly say overrated) graphical shell. I, too, would like to see some reference or at least justification for the claim that Microsoft would not have created Windows had it not been for Unix. As I recall, Visi On did use some Unix as its development platform; and Microsoft Windows was created in response to Visi On; but that's the only obvious causal connection between Unix and Windows that I can see, and it's a tenuous one at best. -- Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael(a)kjorling.se “The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person is to think you know what you’re doing.” (Bret Victor)

On Sunday, February 3, 2019, Steve Nickolas <usotsuki(a)buric.co> wrote: And also don't forget that Xenix had the largest UNIX installed base measured by the number of machines it was installed on. People talking about BSD and System V in the 80s, but it was Xenix that ruled on micros. So at the time Microsoft offered both UNIX and MS-DOS. --Andy

On Sun, 3 Feb 2019, Larry McVoy wrote: I've used it with Debian. Add an X server and PulseAudio server on the Windows side and it's really not bad. -uso.

Indeed, without Unix there wouldn't have been the same rise of Mach, or the drive to make a portable VMS, as there wouldn't be a C either. Many of the leaked internal tools to build NT reflect that all the back office stuff was on Xenix and VMS.  Just as you can find mentions of emacs in the makefiles for NT, and how their life would be in jeopardy for changing the tab indentions. Unix had such an incredible impact on the market that without it everything would be different. Without Xenix micros would have continued to be snubbed by the high end crowd depriving that critical jump from machines that cost more than a large house to personal space. What would be the portable OS to rule them all?  TripOS is the best I can imagine.  BCPL everywhere. Get Outlook for Android On Mon, Feb 4, 2019 at 6:34 AM +0800, "Clem Cole" <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote: On Sun, Feb 3, 2019 at 5:08 PM Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote: My vague (and rough) recollection is CP/M -> DOS -> Windows. "Windows" == Win95 -- which was a user Interface spec the kernel died IBM CP-DOS -> OS/2 --\                                       \                                         ---> NT OS-2 -> NT/WIN .......   Today's WindowsCMU Mach --\                  /                      ---> Mica -/DEC VMS   --/ When Cutler did Mica and then NT OS-2 he did not care what the user interface was.  Mica was a pure uk and NT OS-2 was also, but by the time of the product it became a hybrid.   Putting a different user interface, be it DOS, OS/2, Unix, VMS or Windows was in the kernel design. Clemᐧ

On Mon, 4 Feb 2019, Peter Jeremy wrote: I think the term is "Embrace, Extend, Exterminate" <dalek.jpg> -uso.

On Mon, 4 Feb 2019, Steve Nickolas wrote: I heard it as "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish"; witness their attempt to take over PPP (which eventually had to accommodate their "extensions"), and Usenet before that, which thankfully failed, because they wanted a central authority. How the hell do you think that Usenet flourished? It was an utter anarchy, that's why! And the marketoid control-freaks hated it... If you look carefully at PPP, you will see certain negotiations which ∆ simply don't belong at that level (DNS etc). Cough MS/CHAP cough... If you want to talk PPP to an NT server, well, you'd better be prepared to accommodate their "extensions". And to those bods who think we're bashing M$, well, there might be a damned good reason for it (some of us here go back a *long* time, so you might have to brush up on your history, and grow out of your short pants). -- Dave, who used to be known as "Fowler Ware" on aus.flame

On 2/3/19 7:57 PM, Jason Stevens wrote: TOPS-20 re-written in Mesa That should make some people's heads explode. The technology was there..