4 ms·

What's funny is that MS-DOS is only 4 years older than Windows, initial MS-DOS release being 33 years old whereas Windows is 29 years old. I'm pretty sure that

What's funny is that MS-DOS is only 4 years older than Windows, initial MS-DOS release being 33 years old whereas Windows is 29 years old. I'm pretty sure that in 2018, there won't be a “Windows Showcase” giving such a rush of sweet nostalgia; I wonder how come Win has so much more longevity than MS-DOS had?

pp19dd 12y ago
There's almost such a thing right now. In the node Socket.IO package there is a 'computer' example where you and random internet strangers can control an XP machine: http://socket.io/demos/computer/ http://socket.io/demos/computer/
- zirkonit 12y ago
  =) Nice link, didn't know about it!
sixothree 12y ago
It is possible the reason is because Windows was not really adopted until 3.11 which was around 1992. But even then people still used DOS to load some applications and games.
- zirkonit 12y ago
  Good point!
- sanoli 12y ago
  True. I used win 3.11 when I had to use Word. Other than that, it was DOS.
- digi_owl 12y ago
  Yep. Windows 1.0 to 3.11 came as an "add-on" to DOS. Heck, even as late as Windows ME you had some kind of DOS sitting at the bottom. Only with Windows XP did consumer Windows fully evict the DOS underpinnings. I think my first PC came with MS-DOS 6 and Windows 3.11. Barely touched Windows back then.
  - kaoD 12y ago
    IIRC Win2k was already DOS-less, wasn't it?
    - digi_owl 12y ago
      Yep, being of the NT lineage. But it was not really sold to the consumer market (tough it had better gaming support via directx than any previous NT version). XP was the first consumer NT based Windows release.
    - jermy 12y ago
      Windows NT 3.1 (1993) and its successors (NT 4.0, Windows 2000, XP and the server equivalents) was independent of DOS, but was separate to the other OSes (Windows 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, ME) that ran with a hybrid 16-bit/32-bit monolithic kernel on top of some sort of MS-DOS.
jenscow 12y ago
The most popular Windows games are still available: Solitaire and Minesweeper!
- JetSpiegel 12y ago
  Forget about that, there's Pinball.
  - vram22 12y ago
    Your saying Pinball, combined with the topic of this post - i.e. older computers and operating systems - reminded me of the book The Soul of a New Machine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine which I read some years ago. A fantastic story. Pinball is mentioned in it. Anyone interested, don't go by the description in the Wikipedia article; it may be only partially accurate, and anyway cannot do justice to the book. Try to get hold of an online or offline copy and read it. I'm not endorsing (or otherwise) any of the practices or principles described in the book - just found it a fascinating story. According to Wikipedia: "The book won the 1982 National Book Award for Nonfiction[1] and a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction." Current and former startupistas may be reminded by the book, of some aspects of their life/work-styles, whether good or bad.
bhouston 12y ago
DOS and Windows are not the same age -- you are not comparing apples-to-apples. MS-DOS is a modification of x86-DOS, and x86-DOS is a near copy of CP/M (which has the same API and a many other low level similarities) which is from 1972/1974. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/86-DOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/86-DOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M
CurtHagenlocher 12y ago
The current version of Windows is based on the NT kernel which was written from scratch starting in 1989.
- kps 12y ago
  … starting in 1986, at DEC, when it was called MICA.
  - Someone1234 12y ago
    Nonsense. There is zero lines of code from Mica in NT. However the same people did design both Mica and NT. Namely Dave Cutler and his team of ex DEC engineers who got fired when the DEC PRISM project was closed (of which Mica was a core part). By the logic of your argument Linux wasn't started in 1991, it was started in 1969 and called Unix originally... Even if both where independently developed.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      DEC sued MS for a hefty sum and settled out of court for the IP that Cutler took and passed on to MS so at some level there is Mica stuff in NT or else MS would have probably won that suit. Part of the arrangement was that MS would issue NT for the Alpha architecture, which in fact they did.
      - Someone1234 12y ago
        Irrelevant. The above comment claimed: > … starting in 1986, at DEC, when it was called MICA. Which isn't accurate. NT definitely contains ideas and maybe protected trade secrets from DEC, that's just inevitable when you hire all of DEC's former team to build your new OS. But it is a massive leap to then go on to claim that NT was in fact Mica or that NT was started years earlier because that is when Mica was. See my Linux example. If you think that NT is Mica then Linux is Unix.
        gaius 12y ago
joepie91_ 12y ago
Well... https://archive.org/details/classicpcgames https://archive.org/details/classicpcgames

pp19dd 12y ago

There's almost such a thing right now. In the node Socket.IO package there is a 'computer' example where you and random internet strangers can control an XP machine: http://socket.io/demos/computer/ http://socket.io/demos/computer/

zirkonit 12y ago
=) Nice link, didn't know about it!

sixothree 12y ago

It is possible the reason is because Windows was not really adopted until 3.11 which was around 1992. But even then people still used DOS to load some applications and games.

zirkonit 12y ago
Good point!
sanoli 12y ago
True. I used win 3.11 when I had to use Word. Other than that, it was DOS.
digi_owl 12y ago
Yep. Windows 1.0 to 3.11 came as an "add-on" to DOS. Heck, even as late as Windows ME you had some kind of DOS sitting at the bottom. Only with Windows XP did consumer Windows fully evict the DOS underpinnings. I think my first PC came with MS-DOS 6 and Windows 3.11. Barely touched Windows back then.
- kaoD 12y ago
  IIRC Win2k was already DOS-less, wasn't it?
  - digi_owl 12y ago
    Yep, being of the NT lineage. But it was not really sold to the consumer market (tough it had better gaming support via directx than any previous NT version). XP was the first consumer NT based Windows release.
  - jermy 12y ago
    Windows NT 3.1 (1993) and its successors (NT 4.0, Windows 2000, XP and the server equivalents) was independent of DOS, but was separate to the other OSes (Windows 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, ME) that ran with a hybrid 16-bit/32-bit monolithic kernel on top of some sort of MS-DOS.

jenscow 12y ago

The most popular Windows games are still available: Solitaire and Minesweeper!

JetSpiegel 12y ago
Forget about that, there's Pinball.
- vram22 12y ago
  Your saying Pinball, combined with the topic of this post - i.e. older computers and operating systems - reminded me of the book The Soul of a New Machine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine which I read some years ago. A fantastic story. Pinball is mentioned in it. Anyone interested, don't go by the description in the Wikipedia article; it may be only partially accurate, and anyway cannot do justice to the book. Try to get hold of an online or offline copy and read it. I'm not endorsing (or otherwise) any of the practices or principles described in the book - just found it a fascinating story. According to Wikipedia: "The book won the 1982 National Book Award for Nonfiction[1] and a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction." Current and former startupistas may be reminded by the book, of some aspects of their life/work-styles, whether good or bad.

bhouston 12y ago

DOS and Windows are not the same age -- you are not comparing apples-to-apples. MS-DOS is a modification of x86-DOS, and x86-DOS is a near copy of CP/M (which has the same API and a many other low level similarities) which is from 1972/1974. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/86-DOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/86-DOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M

CurtHagenlocher 12y ago

The current version of Windows is based on the NT kernel which was written from scratch starting in 1989.

kps 12y ago
… starting in 1986, at DEC, when it was called MICA.
- Someone1234 12y ago
  Nonsense. There is zero lines of code from Mica in NT. However the same people did design both Mica and NT. Namely Dave Cutler and his team of ex DEC engineers who got fired when the DEC PRISM project was closed (of which Mica was a core part). By the logic of your argument Linux wasn't started in 1991, it was started in 1969 and called Unix originally... Even if both where independently developed.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    DEC sued MS for a hefty sum and settled out of court for the IP that Cutler took and passed on to MS so at some level there is Mica stuff in NT or else MS would have probably won that suit. Part of the arrangement was that MS would issue NT for the Alpha architecture, which in fact they did.
    - Someone1234 12y ago
      Irrelevant. The above comment claimed: > … starting in 1986, at DEC, when it was called MICA. Which isn't accurate. NT definitely contains ideas and maybe protected trade secrets from DEC, that's just inevitable when you hire all of DEC's former team to build your new OS. But it is a massive leap to then go on to claim that NT was in fact Mica or that NT was started years earlier because that is when Mica was. See my Linux example. If you think that NT is Mica then Linux is Unix.
      - gaius 12y ago

joepie91_ 12y ago

Well... https://archive.org/details/classicpcgames https://archive.org/details/classicpcgames