Lineo Frees CP/M

rbeattie writes: "The Register is reporting that the code for 'the first generic operating system for microcomputers' is now open source. It's interesting to see the final chapter for the code that could have been what was MS-DOS. The article includes the requisite background of CP/M from Gary Kildall's snubbing of IBM to its transformation into DR-DOS, later being sold to Novell then to Caldera who spun it off with Lineo who finally opened up the source in October." The original story is actually at NewsForge. Update: 11/27 22:13 GMT by T : Note, thanks to reader Greg Head, that DR-DOS source appears available only for money; the original headline implied that DR-DOS source was also now available at no charge.

Day late and a dollar short

[Tassach]

While it is commendable to open the source to a defunct product rather than keep it in some kind of propriatary graveyard, this release comes too late to make any practical impact. The few niches where a lightweight DOS kernel would still be useful have pretty much been filled by better alternatives.

Considering how far the Windows product line has diverged from it's MS-DOS roots, even the hope of finding code that's useful for interoperability with M$ systems is pretty slim. Sadly, I can see little practial value to this announcement other than academic and historical interest.

use in an embedded system

[aisaksen]

Would this have any use in an embedded system? It would probably be easier to boot/manage than Linux since CP/M was designed and used back when computers had severe limits on processor speed, memory size, and storage.

Re:Uh Hello???

[Sj0]

We've got another little OS that kicks the shit out of DR-DOS and CP/M... It's called Linux.

I'd agree with you if Linux was half as easy as DOS (1. Plug in driver install disk 2.type a:Install 3. follow onscreen instructions) or if you could run linux on my old TRS-80, 8088, 286, coco3(TRS-80 Color Computer 3), or run half the number of applications available DOS under Linux, or if the bootup time for Linux or Windows was even twice what it was for DOS. DOS is even rock solid stable, especially when we are talking about protected mode apps. The apps may crash, but pmode apps will rarely take the system down, and a lot of regular apps had less to worry about, so they are inherently less buggy. If they did crash, nobody comes close to the swift bootups under DOS, so it doesn't matter as much as when an operating system which takes 5 minutes (or even 30 seconds) to boot up.

DOS has stayed fairly recent because of these things(or in spite of them), and there is even several web browsers (my favourite web browser for DOS is Arachne) for it, in spite of the obstacles faced when coding TCP/IP applications for DOS.

I find the best part though, is that DOS is a de facto cross platform standard. Many Operating Systems can run dos applications either natively or thorugh an emulator or VDM.

Now I'm going to stop fanboy-ing DOS, and get back into the real world. :)

Re:It was good in the day

[killmenow]

DOS WAS the last stable OS

No. DOS was never stable.

C:\&gtTSR1.COM
C:\&gtTSR2.COM
C:\&gtTSR1.COM /unload
---crash---

Handled properly (with certain 3rd party tools like mark/rel, 4DOS, norton utilities, etc.), DOS could be almost enjoyable, but then the same can be said for Windows (gasp!)...

Oh, and DR-DOS was always better than MS-DOS, even with the Win 3.1 warnings of incomatibility...

Re:no matter what anyone says...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or use DesqView. A company that I worked for a long time ago had a support BBS that ran two copies of Wildcat! simultaneously on a 386-16 using DesqView. Why they didn't just use Celerity, PC Board, Oblivion/2 or some other BBS software that supported more than 1 line is beyond me.

Re:DOS stability

[jandrese]

I'm probably being trolled, but...

Assuming you're using the standard conventions, MTF stands for Mean Time to Fail. ("to" sometimes being replaced by "between" and Fail with Failures). In that case I can wholeheartedly agree with your statement, using a single tasking OS in a multiuser environment will decrease your MTF significantly, especially if your users have service level agreements.

Gates did?

[fm6]

It is well known that Gates added CP/M compatiablity in MS-DOS

Added? It was never any secret that MS-DOS (or QDOS, as it was known, before MS bought it from Tim Patterson) was a CP/M clone. Patterson simply used a CP/M manual as his design template. Problem is, Patterson had no understanding of the concepts behind the API. Which is why MS-DOS never really had good support for device management or multitasking.