From: mutazilah@gmail.com   
      
   "Dan Cross"  wrote in message   
   news:vqnhhi$atq$1@reader1.panix.com...   
   > In article <20250310130006.00000497@gmail.com>,   
   > John Ames   wrote:   
   > >On Mon, 10 Mar 2025 19:07:14 GMT   
   > >scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote:   
   > >   
   > >> Not really.  Most business software ran on mainframes   
   > >> and minicomputers in the MSDOS era.  And once NT arrived, DOS was   
   > >> done.   
   > >>   
   > >> There was very little _real_ business software written for   
   > >> MSDOS.   
   > >>   
   > >> Spreadsheets and word processing are a very small portion of   
   > >> business computing.  Material planning, resource planning,   
   > >> human resources, enterprise payroll applications, etc   
   > >> were not really available for MSDOS at any scale.   
   > >   
   > >This is a nicely self-illustrative post, in that you start out with an   
   > >incendiary but extremely blinkered (if not flatly untrue) statement and   
   > >then spend the remainder of it relocating the goalposts to align with   
   > >where you kicked the ball. *Plenty* of business software ran on MS-DOS,   
   > >same as other single-tasking, unprotected microcomputer OSes that card-   
   > >carrying partisans of larger systems like to count as "not a *real* OS"   
   > >Because Reasons, and it's only by redefining "real business" to mean   
   > >"large (multi)national corporations" and "business software" to mean   
   > >"end-to-end computerized management of the entire business enterprise"   
   > >that you can even move your argument out of the realm of "demonstrably   
   > >false" and into "arguable, sort of, if you can get people to accept   
   > >your definitions exclusively."   
   > >   
   > >C-, see me after class.   
   >   
   > I don't know much about "business software", so I can't really   
   > comment on that, except to say that I imagine a lot of small and   
   > perhaps even medium-sized businesses got a lot out of PCs and   
   > DOS programs or whatnot.  Maybe individuals or small teams in   
   > bigger organizations, too.  I can also imagine that they would   
   > hit a scaling limit pretty quickly, at which point they would   
   > want to step up to something more capable.   
   >   
   > But I do know a lot about operating systems, and the objections   
   > to categorizing things like MS-DOS as "a *real* OS" are not mere   
   > handwaving that boils down to "Because Reasons"; there are   
   > actual definitions in use across the field one can look to, and   
   > MS-DOS et al simply do not meet them.  It's great that control   
   > software in the early PC era let people do useful work with   
   > those machines; that doesn't mean that software was good or fit   
   > reasonable definitions of what an "Operating System" is.   
   >   
   > - Dan C.   
   >   
      
   It is you that doesn't have a "reasonable definition" of "operating system".   
      
   At the time of MSDOS,  I never saw one columnist or any   
   individual who ever said that MSDOS was a misnomer,   
   since it isn't technically an OS.   
      
   Nor Tim Patterson called out for putting "OS" in "QDOS"   
   because "it ain't an OS".   
      
   But either way, it isn't a very useful semantic debate.   
      
   BFN. Paul.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)