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- From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
- Subject: Re: Windows 3.1 an "operating system"?
- Message-ID: <1992Nov5.165228.605@mksol.dseg.ti.com>
- Organization: Texas Instruments Inc
- References: <strobl.720556089@gmd.de>> <kewsuLO00WB946OFFB@andrew.cmu.edu> <1992Nov4.201521.4630@mksol.dseg.ti.com> <1992Nov5.063357.19069@csusac.csus.edu>
- Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 16:52:28 GMT
- Lines: 64
-
- In <1992Nov5.063357.19069@csusac.csus.edu> cs139121@athena.ecs.csus.edu (Todd Kepus) writes:
-
- >In article <1992Nov4.201521.4630@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
- >>In <kewsuLO00WB946OFFB@andrew.cmu.edu> jyri+@CMU.EDU (Jyri Virkki) writes:
- >>
- >>>strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) writes:
- >>>>
- >>>> Ok. Now try this: if you want to know if MSDOS is an OS or not,
- >>>> remove the boot sector from your harddisk, turn your computer
- >>>> off, and then try installing MSDOS, without reinstalling that boot
- >>>> sector. Doesn't work either.
- >>
- >>>What in the world is this supposed to prove? Of course something won't
- >>>work if you corrupt it. That's a novel def. of OS to me: An OS is only
- >>>an OS if it is able to boot with a corrputed boot sector. I guess
- >>>there are no OS'es ever made then.
- >>
- >>No, he's just applying the same silly logic that is being used to say
- >>that Windows isn't an OS STRICTLY BECAUSE IT ISN'T BOOTABLE BUT MUST
- >>BE LOADED BY DOS.
- >If this is a silly argument, then why doesn't Microsoft simply allow
- >Windows 3.1 to be boot by disk without the need for DOS. I mean, it
- >seems to me that everybody that claims that WIN 3.1 is an operating
- >system states that it doesn't need DOS. Well, if it doesn't need DOS,
- >then why does it still need it to boot?
-
- Well, first of all, you mistate what people are saying. Windows still
- uses the MS-DOS file management stuff. Second of all, wherever did
- you get the silly idea that an operating system had to be able to boot
- from the bare hardware?
-
- >>
- >>>Can you run and utilize your computer with just the BIOS? No, you need
- >>>to boot an OS, whether it be msdos, linux, whatever (but not windows;
- >>>you can't have the bios boot windows, you need an os in the middle).
- >>>So the BIOS is not an OS. You see, there are many different layers of
- >>>interface between the user and the hardware. Bootstrap and hardware
- >>>level support routines in ROM (the BIOS), an OS (msdos, linux, os/2,
- >>>etc), then an optional graphical interface (windows, X, etc) and then
- >>>your apps. While there can be some overlap in functionality, you can't
- >>>take any entity from one level perform on another level. Windows is
- >>>clearly not an OS, it's on level 3 of the above scale while OS's are
- >>>level 2.
- >>
- >>This is simply not correct. This would make CMS on an IBM mainframe
- >>an 'application' -- it certainly won't boot without VM running. It
- >>would also make ANYTHING running on top of a Mach microkernel
- >>(including OS/2) just an application. Windows isn't just a GUI. You
- >>should check out what is going on in the software (compare X to
- >>Windows, for example).
- >>
- >>--
- >>"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
- >> in the real world." -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
- >>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- >>Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
-
-
-
- --
- "Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
- in the real world." -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
-