4 ms·

I'm mostly joking. However, I've been observing Microsoft since the Windows 2.0 era, and I can't completely discard the possibility that Microsoft actually wou

• maxxxxx 8y ago
  It could be that at some point they mapped domain names to folder names or something like that. Still looks pretty hacky (or malicious) nowadays.
• yesenadam 8y ago
  That does sound like some kind of rational explanation. p.s. Further proof that history's written by the victors, from that 8.3 wiki page: "An 8.3 filename...is a filename convention used by old versions of DOS and versions of Microsoft Windows...Similar 8.3 file naming schemes have also existed on earlier CP/M, TRS-80, Atari, and some Data General and [DEC] minicomputer operating systems." "Similar naming schemes also existed"! A strange way of saying "DOS copied CP/M's drive letter + colon + 8.3 filename exactly". ..and everything else. (Disclosure: I grew up on CP/M)
  • orionblastar 8y ago
    DOS was built on CP/M standards and I heard there was a converter program to convert CP/M to DOS programs because the system API calls were almost the same. Just like MacOS has UNIX API under it and so does Linux as they were based on Unix standards.
    • yesenadam 8y ago
      DOS was built on CP/M standards hehe come on, DOS was a quick copy/imitation of CP/M. That seems a funny way of describing it, dignifying what was a knock-off job. As if accused forgers or plagiarists were to say "Huh? I'm building on the standards of the earlier work." I mean, fair enough (initially), Gates did try first to give the IBM gig to Kildall.