4 ms·

QDOS became MS-DOS and not Windows.

by PhilWright 7y ago

zubairq 7y ago
Windows only became successful because of msdos backward compatibility
- caspper69 7y ago
  That's impossibly untrue. OS/2 2.0 had better DOS AND Windows compatibility/stability than Windows 3.1 at the time. It still got its ass handed to it. Microsoft won because they got the OEMs.
  - wilsynet 7y ago
    I used OS/2 2.x, but it needed more memory than Windows 3.1 and on the machine I had, Windows ran faster even if OS/2 was more stable. Later I tried Warp, but when Windows 95 came around, it was better too. Less stable, but better in other ways. I like this article. It communicates the nuance and complexity of the issues at the time. https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/half-an-operating-system-the-triumph-and-tragedy-of-os2/%3famp=1 https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/information-tec...
  - fragmede 7y ago
    Microsoft got the OEMs via anti-competitive actions. To quote myself from a few years ago: > Probably one of the worst and most egregious is Microsoft's use of a "per processor" fee in the 90's which they only stopped when the government forced them to. If you were an OEM like Dell or HP, and sold Windows on any computers, you had to pay Microsoft for a copy of Windows on all computers you sold, even ones without Windows. > This anti-competitive move meant alternative operating systems, like BeOS, or OS2/Warp, or even Linux weren't really an option. BeOS died, not on any technical merits, but because Microsoft forced it out via other means. Linux only survived because its openness made it hard to kill. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9552661 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9552661
  - zubairq 7y ago
    Microsoft did get the OEMs, true, I stand corrected. But Windows needed backward compatibility to DOS applications, otherwise Windows would have failed, as there was such a huge installed base of existing DOS business applications
aliswe 7y ago
Well wasn't windows built on ms dos in the early days?

QDOS became MS-DOS and not Windows.

zubairq 7y ago

Windows only became successful because of msdos backward compatibility

caspper69 7y ago
That's impossibly untrue. OS/2 2.0 had better DOS AND Windows compatibility/stability than Windows 3.1 at the time. It still got its ass handed to it. Microsoft won because they got the OEMs.
- wilsynet 7y ago
  I used OS/2 2.x, but it needed more memory than Windows 3.1 and on the machine I had, Windows ran faster even if OS/2 was more stable. Later I tried Warp, but when Windows 95 came around, it was better too. Less stable, but better in other ways. I like this article. It communicates the nuance and complexity of the issues at the time. https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/half-an-operating-system-the-triumph-and-tragedy-of-os2/%3famp=1 https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/information-tec...
- fragmede 7y ago
  Microsoft got the OEMs via anti-competitive actions. To quote myself from a few years ago: > Probably one of the worst and most egregious is Microsoft's use of a "per processor" fee in the 90's which they only stopped when the government forced them to. If you were an OEM like Dell or HP, and sold Windows on any computers, you had to pay Microsoft for a copy of Windows on all computers you sold, even ones without Windows. > This anti-competitive move meant alternative operating systems, like BeOS, or OS2/Warp, or even Linux weren't really an option. BeOS died, not on any technical merits, but because Microsoft forced it out via other means. Linux only survived because its openness made it hard to kill. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9552661 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9552661
- zubairq 7y ago
  Microsoft did get the OEMs, true, I stand corrected. But Windows needed backward compatibility to DOS applications, otherwise Windows would have failed, as there was such a huge installed base of existing DOS business applications

aliswe 7y ago

Well wasn't windows built on ms dos in the early days?