can an os be wrritten in 6 months time

[Dex4u]

When i say 32bit Dos, i mean how a 32bit dos would have been if M$ had not stopped Dev it, M$ do not want to tell you, that the best OS for running games is Dos, so they say its a striped down win2000
But you take a look at the spec
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1156389,00.asp

To me it more a 32bit pmode Dos, than win2000 .

[NotTheCHEAT]

I agree.

Besides, what is an OS worth if it ISN'T useful? I'll tell you what it's worth: it's worth working on longer. Unless of course the code is mangled beyond repair, like that of DOS...

Yes, what I mean by 32-bit DOS is: what DOS would be today if it hadn't become, quote, "OBSOLETE", end quote. I still use DOS often, but to the average guy named Joe who works in accounting, DOS sucks.

[AR]

And that it was basically a rip off, DOS doesn't offer anything more than an extension to the BIOS functions (Load programs, drivers, filesystem management, etc), a command line interpreter (command.com), a text editor(edit.com) and qbasic and a bunch of utilities for repairing continually recurring problems.

Linux is close to a (comparitively good) 32bit DOS, it is decentralised (config files) and runs in a command prompt mode by default.

[NotTheCHEAT]

linux is magnitudes better than DOS. Comparing them is... well, stupid. Like comparing me with Elvis Presley

Yes, DOS is a rip-off. Even Elvis could write better code and better structure than that, and besides, wasn't it bought by M$, given a new name, and marketed? So it wasn't really THEIR product, they just bought it.

a bunch of utilities for repairing continually recurring problems.

lol, exactly right.

[Crazed123]

"Quick and Dirty Operating System"?

That's why it's obsolete.

[Pype.Clicker]

And that it was basically a rip off, DOS doesn't offer anything more than an extension to the BIOS functions.

0_o sorry ? just an extension to BIOS ? you mean like "BIOS is the master thing that allows you to read/write sectors on a disk and DOS is just like a sugar that make those sectors appear like a contiguous amount of permanent memory, which you can identify with a name in a directory hierarchy, expand it and shrink it if needed, and allows you to read any byte slice of it by just giving an offset and a size" ?

Or maybe like "BIOS is the master thing that can get a scancode out of the keyboard and DOS is just a stupid additionnal layer that translate it in an ascii key depending on the user's preference (keyboard config), buffer them as long as a line is entered, allow for "backspace" completion, supports command history (if you only enable "doskey") and backward edition ?"

Seriously, dude ... i doubt you've ever had to work with DOS long enough to figure out what it's really able to do ...

Linux is close to a (comparitively good) 32bit DOS, it is decentralised (config files) and runs in a command prompt mode by default.

(( O )) __ (( O ))

you ...

what ? . ?? ...

nah, that can't be serious, can it ? where in DOS have you seen multi-process ? or something looking like IPC management ? or a network support ? (not even talking about routing or firewalling, here: just the end-system side of the network)

You know, even the most crude linux you might encounter (e.g. a SuSE repair CD or something alike) is able to temporarily suspend an editor while you enter some commands and then resume it aswell as it can allow you to edit a file while you're compressing a disk image and flow it through the network using 3 different programs ...

That's lightyears ahead of whatever DOS has been able to mimmic ...

Aren't you overestimating the power of the Start button ?
Explorer.exe is just a user-level program too ...

[AR]

DOS is basically just a filesystem manager with some additional functions thrown on top of the BIOS functions. I could write something just as effective (although probably not if I was forced to do it in assembly) in a few weeks [Not including the time required to lookup all the hardware functions for changing code pages and stupid half-fixes like that].

If DOS was to magically become good then it would be UNIX (ie. Linux) since that's where most of the concepts were inherited from [It is essentially an as minimal as minimal can be clone].

[Solar]

Before this gets overboard: If you compare apples with oranges, at least remember that Linux is a kernel, with lots of basically unrelated generic POSIX software running on top.

I think you would be distinctly unimpressed by the user experience of a Linux kernel with sh and a busybox running. (Not that it would get even to that point without lots of third-party help.)

Erm...

How did we get here, and why are we discussing this?

[NotTheCHEAT]

Explorer.exe is just a user-level program too ...

Don't get me wrong, I love linux and HATE Windows. But this is not a valid argument, because the closest thing linux has to EXPLORER.EXE is XFree86- and that's a user-level program, too. OK, but that's not an integral part of linux. So let me put it another way too. bash is a user-level program as well. So that isn't a valid argument (it isn't an argument at all) for "why linux is billions of times better than DOS/Windows". (And is there anything wrong with a user-level shell?)

Anyways, a modern DOS would be a lot like linux. If someone made a DOS, except modern, it would probably be 32-bit protected mode, with multi-tasking. Right?

And DOS did take too much from Unix, although they added a few unique features and changed the syntax. I wouldn't say DOS is completely bad. It's perfect for what it was made for. What was DOS made to be? A minimal system with very little memory, very little disk space (think 5.25" floppy with 360K, or less), that could do just the essentials and leave enough extensibility for others to make it better. As such, it is sort of the opposite of Unix, and AR said, to become "good" it must become more Unix-like.

In short, DOS sucks but it is like a sort of pre-linux. Or, since that may be stretching it a bit, it's like a pre-prelinux, or a pre-Minix.

@Solar: We got here because we were trying to describe what an OS built in six months would be like, so we described it as "like a modern DOS" and now we're arguing about what a modern DOS would be like...

[Dex4u]

@NotTheCHEAT, Linux and Dos are chalk and cheese, just because they both have a CLI does not mean they are the same.
Even a modern Dos would be nothing like Linux.
Its the xbox that is like a modern Dos.

[Pype.Clicker]

Its the xbox that is like a modern Dos.

Yup, from what i've seen on the posted link, it seems like xbox-OS (and probably much like the "OS" beneath playstation) is what looks most like DOS nowadays: single user, single address space, no permission check, direct access to the hardware allowed ...

[Warrior]

I'd assume so, no need protecting memory or having multitasking in an OS meant to play a game!

[NotTheCHEAT]

What I'm trying to say is that if DOS were still around, if it were to be modernized, I think it would have to evolve, and become something like linux. I don't think it would survive if it didn't evolve. I didn't say it's like linux (the two aren't even similar) but if DOS had survived it definitely would have to evolve, and become more like linux. Right?

[Phugoid]

If DOS were to evolve, it would probably receive an NT-compatible API and ABI. That way, applications written for "evolved DOS" would be binary-compatible with WinNT, and Microsoft could discontinue "evolved DOS" whenever they felt comfortable about it. Oh wait, that's exactly what happened.

There is no subjunctive in history.

[Cjmovie]

If DOS were modernized, it would be 32-bit, multi-tasking, API call controlled, protected mode, paging operating system.

Oh wait! There already is a modern DOS! It's called....Windows!

Guys, you do realize that Windows evolved from DOS?

OK, I know what you mean by modern DOS. I just LOVE taking things literally....... ;D