On 2001-10-30 [EMAIL PROTECTED] <Or Botton> said: >Byte magazine has an article about "The end of DOS", as portrait >by Windows XP.
>I'm giving here the Slashdot article link as well, since the >comments might intrest some people. Or -- Even though Microsoft was the first company to aggressively market the DOS command line operating system, most of us are aware (here, at least) that they have been trying to extinguish its influence in favor of their "progressive" business model. No doubt Microsoft understands that, in order to perpetuate their market dominance, it's not feasible to keep selling a "stagnate" product -- even if it's excellent, stable, and serves 90% (let's say) of the average consumer's needs installed on a typical SurvPC. By creating a constant state of flux in the "development" of the computer operating system, it has been possible to keep marketing it ad infinitum. What we see in the new XP business model is no more than a variation of this same theme. Personally, I'd be more in favor of expensive, yet highly efficient and effective, operating systems -- operating systems so well written and delightfully stable, that they'd have no real need of change for at least ten or fifteen years. Then we'd see a great shift of financial resources previously devoted to ceaseless software "upgrades" funneling into larger "consumer-friendly" products. The horse would once again come *after* the cart, and we could get on with our lives with more creative energy without worrying about the "software tax". The ceremonial death of MS-DOS is a silly joke. It just offered attention-getting color to the introduction of Windows XP. It's no more interesting or significant, in my opinion, than the sort of shock ads one sees in the Wall Street Journal. Microsoft might be able to make history, but they won't be able to erase it -- and the same is true for a respectable Disk Operating System. Jerry... on his IBM PC/AT 5170 Model 339 | My laptop computer's a ***** 9600kbps/30MB HD/512k RAM/8 MHz | Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 Net-Tamer V 1.11.2X - Registered To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
