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This brought to mind the AARD "crash" which Microsoft used to basically destroy competition from DR-DOS back in the day. > The AARD code was a segment of code

This brought to mind the AARD "crash" which Microsoft used to basically destroy competition from DR-DOS back in the day. > The AARD code was a segment of code in a beta release of Microsoft Windows 3.1 that would determine whether Windows was running on MS-DOS or PC DOS, rather than a competing workalike such as DR-DOS, and would result in a cryptic error message in the latter case. This XOR-encrypted, self-modifying, and deliberately obfuscated machine code used a variety of undocumented DOS structures and functions to perform its work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code https://www.geoffchappell.com/notes/windows/archive/aard/drdos/index.htm https://www.geoffchappell.com/notes/windows/archive/aard/drd... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36042213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36042213

jacquesm 3y ago
Why go back so far into history when weeks suffice: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37897428 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37897428
xenadu02 3y ago
The AARD code (which was a non-fatal warning that didn't stop you from using Windows) never actually shipped. It was patched to be non-reachable in the final release, probably a binary patch to avoid a regression and long build times (including a large packing problem: optimizing floppy disk layout) FWIW DR-DOS was a dead end product at launch. It was abundantly clear to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that people/OEMs were not going to buy two operating systems: a GUI OS and a DOS that also acted like a bootloader for the GUI OS. The idea that there would exist, for any significant length of time, a market for a standalone text-only 16-bit DOS was complete and utter fantasy. DR-DOS was never significant in terms of sales. Even if the AARD code had actually shipped in the final Windows 3.x release it wouldn't have mattered.
- hakfoo 3y ago
  DR-DOS was a viable product for many years. It first appeared as a product to compete with MS/PC-DOS 3.x releases in the late 1980s. XT-class machines were still on the market, and Windows was far from unchallenged dominance. If you asked in 1989 what computing would look like by 1995, "OS/2", "Unix", or "something we haven't even imagined yet" were viable guesses, probably even more so than "That clunky Windows/386 shell will subsume almost all drivers and functionality, but you'll still need a glorified version of DOS 3.3 as a bootloader." Aside from whether DR-DOS was a compelling retail product, it served an important market purpose: it forced a price ceiling for MS-DOS. This probably spurred Microsoft's questionably-legal bundling and pricing strategy, but the end result is that OEMs weren't paying $150 for a copy of DOS through the 1990s.
  - xenadu02 3y ago
    You make some fair points. My main point is this: Stop posting the AARD code thing as some kind of "gotcha!". AARD is irrelevant. If you want to point at anti-competitive or problematic things Microsoft did then point at things that actually mattered.
sonicanatidae 3y ago
This tracks for Microsoft. The very same company that told Compaq that if they sold any PCs with OS/2 Warp, they would never sell another one with Windows. Humans are why we can't have nice things. OS/2 Warp was a great OS.
- elzbardico 3y ago
  Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer probably can't be classified as humans.
- pmarreck 3y ago
  all this looks like points for open source. You can’t exactly stop someone from putting an open source OS on their hardware, and if the train software was open-source, then this “clawback code” nonsense would have been impossible to keep secret. and you’re right, OS/2 Warp WAS a great OS. As soon as it started losing market viability, it should have gone open source as a defensive self-preservation tactic. When LLaMa was released for free, it basically guaranteed it would never die a corporate death
  - Workaccount2 3y ago
    Now we just need a a good open source OS made for lifelong windows/macOS users. Not one made for lifelong linux users.
    - sonicanatidae 3y ago
      Sorry, best I can do is a Elementry OS Linux.
    - goodpoint 3y ago
      Or not.
    - pmarreck 3y ago
      IMHO, Apple should have open-sourced their OS a long time ago while offering "best" compatibility with their hardware. They would have expanded both markets tremendously. I'm currently a "NixOS" guy, and it feels like the "last distro hop" for me. There's a learning curve but it's kind of like "you get ALL the customization, plus seat belts in case something screws up". I still like Macs but I don't really like the direction Apple's taken recently with regards to locking down macOS hardware and system software. I'm a fan of things like Asahi Linux but even that depends on Apple's permission to work
JAlexoid 3y ago
It's not really the same, in this case. The AARD crash was an intentional break in compatibility, while this is more like planned obsoleteness. Leaving a train stationary for "too long" would disable it? Microsoft would have loved to control the platform to that level :D
- dclowd9901 3y ago
  Obsolescence*
thaumasiotes 3y ago
> This brought to mind the AARD "crash" which Microsoft used to basically destroy competition from DR-DOS back in the day. Given that, according to the article, the functionality was never enabled, how did it get used to destroy competition from DR-DOS?
pseudosavant 3y ago
DR-DOS must have already been on the brink if some code in a 'beta release of Microsoft Windows 3.1' finished them off.
l0b0 3y ago
$280 million settlement for securing global OS domination for a few years. Pretty cheap.
- mistrial9 3y ago
  William Gates was The World's Richest Man for what, twenty years without fail?
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    > William Gates was The World's Richest Man for what, twenty years without fail? Longer. For some reason, when he endowed the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, its assets stopped being counted as part of his wealth, despite being completely controlled by him.
fritzo 3y ago
You can't eradicate malaria without breaking a few eggs.

jacquesm 3y ago

Why go back so far into history when weeks suffice: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37897428 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37897428

xenadu02 3y ago

The AARD code (which was a non-fatal warning that didn't stop you from using Windows) never actually shipped. It was patched to be non-reachable in the final release, probably a binary patch to avoid a regression and long build times (including a large packing problem: optimizing floppy disk layout) FWIW DR-DOS was a dead end product at launch. It was abundantly clear to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that people/OEMs were not going to buy two operating systems: a GUI OS and a DOS that also acted like a bootloader for the GUI OS. The idea that there would exist, for any significant length of time, a market for a standalone text-only 16-bit DOS was complete and utter fantasy. DR-DOS was never significant in terms of sales. Even if the AARD code had actually shipped in the final Windows 3.x release it wouldn't have mattered.

hakfoo 3y ago
DR-DOS was a viable product for many years. It first appeared as a product to compete with MS/PC-DOS 3.x releases in the late 1980s. XT-class machines were still on the market, and Windows was far from unchallenged dominance. If you asked in 1989 what computing would look like by 1995, "OS/2", "Unix", or "something we haven't even imagined yet" were viable guesses, probably even more so than "That clunky Windows/386 shell will subsume almost all drivers and functionality, but you'll still need a glorified version of DOS 3.3 as a bootloader." Aside from whether DR-DOS was a compelling retail product, it served an important market purpose: it forced a price ceiling for MS-DOS. This probably spurred Microsoft's questionably-legal bundling and pricing strategy, but the end result is that OEMs weren't paying $150 for a copy of DOS through the 1990s.
- xenadu02 3y ago
  You make some fair points. My main point is this: Stop posting the AARD code thing as some kind of "gotcha!". AARD is irrelevant. If you want to point at anti-competitive or problematic things Microsoft did then point at things that actually mattered.

sonicanatidae 3y ago

This tracks for Microsoft. The very same company that told Compaq that if they sold any PCs with OS/2 Warp, they would never sell another one with Windows. Humans are why we can't have nice things. OS/2 Warp was a great OS.

elzbardico 3y ago
Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer probably can't be classified as humans.
pmarreck 3y ago
all this looks like points for open source. You can’t exactly stop someone from putting an open source OS on their hardware, and if the train software was open-source, then this “clawback code” nonsense would have been impossible to keep secret. and you’re right, OS/2 Warp WAS a great OS. As soon as it started losing market viability, it should have gone open source as a defensive self-preservation tactic. When LLaMa was released for free, it basically guaranteed it would never die a corporate death
- Workaccount2 3y ago
  Now we just need a a good open source OS made for lifelong windows/macOS users. Not one made for lifelong linux users.
  - sonicanatidae 3y ago
    Sorry, best I can do is a Elementry OS Linux.
  - goodpoint 3y ago
    Or not.
  - pmarreck 3y ago
    IMHO, Apple should have open-sourced their OS a long time ago while offering "best" compatibility with their hardware. They would have expanded both markets tremendously. I'm currently a "NixOS" guy, and it feels like the "last distro hop" for me. There's a learning curve but it's kind of like "you get ALL the customization, plus seat belts in case something screws up". I still like Macs but I don't really like the direction Apple's taken recently with regards to locking down macOS hardware and system software. I'm a fan of things like Asahi Linux but even that depends on Apple's permission to work

JAlexoid 3y ago

It's not really the same, in this case. The AARD crash was an intentional break in compatibility, while this is more like planned obsoleteness. Leaving a train stationary for "too long" would disable it? Microsoft would have loved to control the platform to that level :D

dclowd9901 3y ago
Obsolescence*

thaumasiotes 3y ago

> This brought to mind the AARD "crash" which Microsoft used to basically destroy competition from DR-DOS back in the day. Given that, according to the article, the functionality was never enabled, how did it get used to destroy competition from DR-DOS?

pseudosavant 3y ago

DR-DOS must have already been on the brink if some code in a 'beta release of Microsoft Windows 3.1' finished them off.

l0b0 3y ago

$280 million settlement for securing global OS domination for a few years. Pretty cheap.

mistrial9 3y ago
William Gates was The World's Richest Man for what, twenty years without fail?
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > William Gates was The World's Richest Man for what, twenty years without fail? Longer. For some reason, when he endowed the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, its assets stopped being counted as part of his wealth, despite being completely controlled by him.

fritzo 3y ago

You can't eradicate malaria without breaking a few eggs.