From: cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net   
      
   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.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)