4 Dec
2003
4 Dec
'03
12:57 p.m.
On Thu, 2003-12-04 at 12:00, Cini, Richard wrote:
"In the last few days of 1980, a new version of
the DOS was released, now
known as 86-DOS version 0.3. Seattle Computer passed this new version onto
Microsoft, which had bought the non-exclusive rights to market 86-DOS and
had one customer for it at the time."
"In April 1981, Seattle Computer Products released 86-DOS version 1.00,
which was very similar to the versions of MS-DOS that are widely distributed
today."
Thanks! I shoudl have read out the thread before replying.
And the standalone basic thread...
RTFM!!
tomj
So, who invented the FAT filesystem we know today? Microsoft
(through Stand-Alone Disk BASIC)? Seattle Computer (through 86-DOS)?
To paraphrase Artie Johnson..."Very interesting".
Rich
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Vintage Computer
Festival
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 2:14 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: FAT file system now licensed by MS ?
On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, Fred N. van Kempen wrote:
To my own laughter and surprise, Microsoft now
claims to have the
rights to the FAT file system, and intends to execute on a licensing
program for it, with obvious results.
Wasnt FAT done (in crude format) by MP/M or CP/M86 already *before*
Microsoft? They claim it was developed by them in 1976, but I seem
to recall it being mentioned before that, around 1974-ish or so,
by homebrew people (such as CP/M et al.) ??
--f (who runs FAT on his own PDP-11 OS ;-)
It's a total joke. First of all, the patents referenced on their FAT
licensing website:
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp
...are for long filenames. They have no patent on FAT, and for good
reasons: 1) software patents were not allowed at the time that FAT was
implemented in MS-DOS, and 2) FAT was basically lifted from another OS.
I have no idea why MS would be so stupid as to think people are going to
fall for this, which is basically a sad-assed ruse. Also, I highly
question the history they are promulgating. They claim they developed FAT
in 1976. That seems a bit early. I could be wrong.
Damn losers.