Tim Harford wrote:
>
> Dear MSX users,
> please don't post to the
> mailing list (I'm not subscribed), but reply to me at
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I've send this reponse also to the mailinglist. If I make some mistakes
in my explanation others will be able to correct me.
I hope you will post your final article also to the mailinglist, I'm
sure it will be greatly appriciated.
>
> At the heart of the article is the question - why did Microsoft end up
> owning the important parts of the PC standard? Why wasn't it Apple,
> for
> example? I had thought that MSX was another competitor to MS-DOS based
> IBM
> PCs, but your FAQs tell me that Microsoft was behind MSX as well as
> MS-DOS.
> So why did MSX die? What was wrong with it? Did Microsoft back it or
> abandon
> it?
MSX was a standard invented in Japan. But like we all know, good
hardware whitout software to back it up doesn't stand a change (remember
jaguar,3DO,virtual boy,...). It was the age of homecomputing and
something needed by every homecomputer was some form BASIC-language in
ROM. (External pheripherie was expensive and external storage slow)
Now at that time there was this (small) compagny in the USA who had a
rather good BASIC available, and they also made a small Disk OS (used by
IBM to replace the verry populair CP/M os). This firm made some
improvements to their BASIC (+ adaptments to the hardware) and so the
best BASIC from that time was born : MicroSoft eXtended BASIC. The new
standard was named after its superiour BASIC, hence the name MSX.
They also made an early version (1.0 ? 2.0?) of their disk-OS available
for the new MSX system. So the name MSX-DOS raised its head. I better
set this straight, the name MSX-DOS meanes "Disk Operating System for
the MSX standard" don't you dare reading an eXtend DOS, this is
completely wrong.Hey, from al the homecomputers out there MSX disks are
propably the only who can be used directly by MS-DOS/WIN 9x/NT. (only
different boot-sector)
MS abandond MSX quite early on, disregarding their earlier promisies of
supporting this new system. Probably helping the few customers 'for the
their own good', already then.
Ofcourse comercial as they where/are they kept al the (MSX-)rights to
them self and refusing to sell them, not willing that anybody else
further developed their products.
This made for the fact that the MSX was 'threading in the same place'
(is this a good english expression?). I couldn't go forward very well.
The hardware was expanded alright, floppys were becomming standard and a
solution for more memory (up to 32 meg) was available and standarized,
but to be backwards compatible one needed MSX-DOS1 for the old programs.
And so we had the problem of good hardware/no way to make a
(backwards-)compatible software solution to use the hardware.
It wasn't until late eighties that ASCII was allowed to produce MSX-DOS2
which (finally) had subdirectories and standarized memorymanagement
routines. At this point in time MSX was only populair in Japan and
die-hard fans of the system. The market was changing already to the new
"IBM-compatible-standard"
As a sidenote: Why MS has become so big? They produce software for cheap
hardware.
Apple had good hardware/software but nobody else could produce the
hardware so it wasn't cheap. The intel platform had many constructors so
the prices where getting lower and lower. Hey , that's wat free market
and demand/pricing leads to.
MS didn't care about hardware, and their software neither. So you could
get your hardware where-ever you liked, you copied your DOS (and later
win 3.x/9x ) from a friend or relative whitout any costs. MS products
got spread and their popularity grew by normal(= not technical aware)
users. Hardware didn't mater it was the soft that counted, so that you
could exchange progies/games with the others. And so the circle started.
DOS is populair -> games and progs for DOS -> everybody copied
games/progs -> needed dos -> biger install base for DOS -> more products
for DOS -> ....
David Heremans
PS: No spellchecker has been run so this text isn't bug free. I know me
English is bad.
> Many thanks in advance,
> Yours, Tim Harford
> -------
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
--
.--.
|o_o |
|:_/ | "One difference between SuSE and Red Hat is that the
// \ \ former operates in a country where people don't sue
(| | ) each other over coffee being too hot."
/'\_ _/`\ Linus Torvalds
\___)=(___/
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