On Sat, 14 Jul 2001 16:58:35 Robert Wittig wrote:
> At present I am very interested in the transition from MS DOS 3.x
> to MSDOS 5, which was a very critical time in OS history, it seems.
> DOS 4 was a specialty version, sot of, without a protected mode, if
> my understanding is correct. Then OS/2 branched off while DOS 5 was
> being developed, and about the same time, Windows was being
> developed, but w/o the 32bit multitasking abilities of OS/2.
Hmm. If memory serves me correctly, things were a little different
in that period (1987-90). DOS 3.3 was king; the first version that
properly supported networking SHARE without bugs, and the last
reasonably-sized DOS version that will do everything you'd require.
Windows 2.x was popular among business users, because of the easy
learning curve for clerical workers. Win 2 was also the last of a
breed: the windows runtimes could be included on a 360k floppy,
along with a graphics program using the windows interface. (I still
have some dusty 5 1/4 disks with PaintBrush IV (the originators of
the good PCX graphics-file standard, before Corel bought them out)
- as well as a version of Aldus Pagemaker containing Win 2.
Both ran just fine on a 286 IBM AT, and calling the program started
up a Windows file manager which remained as long as the graphics
program was running.
Both OS/2 and Windows 3.0 came on the market about the same time.
Win 3 seemed HUGE - but was just a little piker compared to OS/2,
which demanded 80-100 megabytes of disk space. Both "required" a
386 or better (when 486s were announced, but not yet available) -
and 2 - 4 megabytes (minimum) of RAM. (If you stripped down Win 3,
you could run it on a 286 containing some EMS, but it was very
limited, and just a curiousity. It crashed constantly in this
configuration, dying every time it tripped over a 386-only
instruction.
DOS 4 was announced among much fanfare at one of the COMDEX East
shows (1989? +/- a year) - and was chock full of bugs, making it
far less stable than its predecessor, 3.3. (It also was MS's first
attempt at monopolizing things; a "standard" installation brought
up an odd DOS SHELL "launching platform" which tended to hide the
underlying DOS from newbies.) Microsoft wisely heeded the millions
of angry bug reports, and brought out version 5 within no more than
six months. Gone was the annoying DOS SHELL... but I still don't
know if it was just a retread of DOS 3.3, with a few extra
installation disks added to the set for show.
During this entire period, the DOS versions and Windows were still
clearly different products; one was an operating system, and the
other a graphics application. (They still are - through at least
win ME - but you'd never know that from Microsoft's blurbs, or
the confused rhetoric of latecomers who actually think that windows
is an OS...)
If you ask me, the only real change in DOS after 3.3 came with DOS
version 6 - which bundled stolen DOUBLESPACE disk compression and
a few Norton-style applications into the mix. That stuffed stayed
stable for years, until DOS 7 (masquerading as Win 95) came out.
Of course, w95 really *was* a seminal change in the way operating
systems/graphical applications were marketed... and it did include
some neat, NEW ideas, too. (At the cost of about 360 megs of disk
space!)
Just reminiscing...
- John T.
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