No O/S as a right more than ever

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org>

| > Lennart Sorensen wrote:
| > >
| > > I happen to very much appreciate some of what microsoft has done.


| I said "some".  There is a lot more I don't appreciate.  I was just saying
| they have done some good, although perhaps only in their own interests.

The neat thing about the free market, when working well, is that lots of
actors do good by doing things in their own interest.

Even monopolies do some good things by doing things in their own
interest.  It is just a lot less likely.

My favourite Microsoft "good thing" was to force hardware capacity and
capability to grow in a way that made it viable for UNIX.

Atari ST, Amiga, and Mac hardware wasn't good enough for UNIX for the
first few years.  Nor were PCs.

(I know, UNIX was ported to the IBM PC-XT, but that a bad platform: no
MMU.  The AT did have an MMU, but 16-bit was so 1978 to UNIX folks.)

Anyway, Microsoft software was bloated and pushed PC hardware to the
point where is was quite suitable for UNIX: the 386.  For something as
dumb as MS DOS + Win3.0!

I admit that Linux is bloated too.

Another funny monopoly thing that I liked: Intel put a fancy MMU in
the 286 without there being real market demand.  As a UNIX guy, I
thought it was great.  The vast majority of actual use of the 286 MMU
was to try to get more than 640K accessible to MS DOS.  What an
underused feature!  Even the 386 was dead before MS fielded a
mainstream OS that made reasonable use of its MMU (I don't count
Xenix).

One thing I don't like about MS: most monopolies get fat, stupid, and
lazy.  Easy pickings for nimble folks below their radar.  MS seems to
be paranoid enough to be constantly vigilant and aggressive.
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