8 Oct
2024
8 Oct
'24
8:37 p.m.
On 2024-10-08 6:16 p.m., Doug Jackson via cctalk wrote:
And yet, here we are.
When I built my first system in 1985 as a trainee technical officer,
the *first* thing I did was copy all of the 8" floppies I could from a
donor system onto my 5.25" DSHD drives (1.2MB - The biggest system in
the neighbourhood at the time), so I could return the borrowed 8"
drive to its owner.
I never had 8" drives at home.
I fully accept Kildall's rationale for having one standard - but we
have proven in the 50 years since then that a worldview that is static
doesn't work long term.
One thing worth considering is that CP/M never had subdirectories -
only User areas which are a pain to search for things within. (User1 -
DIR, User2 - DIR, user 3 - Dir... etc etc..) so limiting floppy size
to Single Density made great sense.
Dos also has no subdirectories. So did the hundreds of other 8 bit operating
systems. You did need to have two floppies, a: & b: have it work well,
but how much software did you have? A spread sheet, word processor
and Adventure.
https://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archive/games/cpm/
A bit later down the road.
Online quote
"Microsoft hopes that Xenix will become the preferred choice for
software production and exchange", the company stated in 1981.[8]
Microsoft referred to its own MS-DOS as its "single-user, single-tasking
operating system",[34] and advised customers who wanted multiuser or
multitasking support to buy Xenix.[34][35] It planned over time to
improve MS-DOS so it would be almost indistinguishable from single-user
Xenix, or XEDOS, which would also run on the 68000, Z8000, and LSI-11;
they would be upwardly compatible with Xenix, which Byte in 1983
described as "the multi-user MS-DOS of the future".[36][37] Microsoft's
Chris Larson described MS-DOS 2.0's Xenix compatibility as "the second
most important feature".[38] His company advertised DOS and Xenix
together, describing MS-DOS 2.0 (its "single-user OS") as sharing
features and system calls with Xenix ("the multi-user, multi-tasking,
Unix-derived operating system"), and promising easy porting between ..."
Dos 2.0 was to be a single user version of unix.
Looking at DOS 2.0 manual, just floppies supported and yes the 8" floppy
was supported but not on the PC.
Fortunately, now we have modern standards that are
extensible. They
cost us dearly in complexity, but it allows us to plug the next
available storage device into a USB orifice, and have it 'just work'
What happens if does not work.
Come fix my system to have Mirror Cast work with my DVD player?
I had it play once, hung and never worked since.
How many times have you got a product, but it never worked with your
system or it got discontinued? 3D movies are a good example,
I got a 3D projector and then found they no longer made 3D movies
in that format.
Since I wear glasses the old red/green spectacles don't work.
Just my $0.02 ;-)
Kindest regards,
Doug Jackson
Ben.
PS. I try to connect, and the PC says disconnecting.