15 Jul
2016
15 Jul
'16
5:30 p.m.
On 14 July 2016 at 20:50, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
Everyone seems to forget about the work-alikes, such as TPM for the
Epson QX-80.
True. And there was Pro DOS for the SAM Coup?:
http://www.samcoupe-pro-dos.co.uk/
ZCN for the Amstrad NC series:
https://www.ncus.org.uk/fnov00.htm
And probably others.
GEM for the Atari ST is essntially a clone of MS-DOS
functionality for
the 68K with a graphics enhancement tacked on. Yet I've never heard any
accusations that DRI "pirated" MS-DOS.
Not GEM as such -- it's the GUI layer. But ST GEM ran on a kernel
called GEMDOS, which was a sort of hybrid of CP/M-68K and DR-DOS: a
68000 kernel but with MS-DOS like API compatibility.
Written by DR and licensed from them by Atari.
So, a better comparison would be DR-DOS. I think nobody ever claimed
that DR stole MS-DOS source code, though. It was clean-room
reverse-engineered, and had some different internal data structures,
which manifested in a (very very few) compatibility problems.
However, the accusation is that MS -- or SCP -- did actually use CP/M
source code in creating QDOS.
It's not that QDOS' design was copied from CP/M, which it was --
that's already been admitted. It's that QDOS contained appropriated
CP/M source from DR.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)