You can't really compare DOS and UNIX. UNIX was built so researchers could share time on a big server system through dumb terminals.
DOS was built for a single user on a low resource personal computer. On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 6:33 AM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > Eric Walker <[email protected]> wrote: > > Gates was at the helm of Microsoft when it acquired DOS. DOS came out >> many years after and was an anorexic imitation of UNIX. >> > > That is incorrect. They brought it out within months, not years. IBM > wanted an operating system for the upcoming PC. Microsoft hustled to > purchase one from Seattle Computer Products and then get it ready for the > PC. It was an imitation of CP/M, not UNIX. In my opinion at that time, it > was much better than CP/M. > > It was never a secret that they bought it. They improved it a great deal. > Microsoft was slow to produce Windows but they kept up with needed changes > to DOS. > > There is one thing about I find regrettable about this history. When IBM > was looking for an operating system, they went to several places including > Microsoft, Digital Research and Data General. They thought about using the > Data General Micro-Nova operating system. I was using it at the time. It > was far superior to DOS or CP/M. It had excellent multi-tasking. If they > had selected it, computers in the 1980s would have been better, and > programmers would have been spared millions of hours of grief. > > I think I recall reading that Data General was not interested in a deal > with IBM. > > - Jed > >
