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Microsoft is renowned for being able to produce software, so they would never end up in quite the same spot. If they ever do a complete replacement of Windows, it will be their own product that does it. They won't do this until Windows is clearly dead, because it is the Windows lock-in that makes them the big money.

Microsoft is renowned, as far as OSes is concerned, for taking/buying other companies software and repackaging and marketing. MS DOS was bought by MicroSoft from somebody else and repackaged to sell to IBM. MS and IBM worked on OS/2 together and Windows 3.1 together. When they went their separate ways IBM owned some rights to Win 3.1, so they could bundle it with OS/2 and MS owned some rights to OS/2, which they reworked and brought out as Windows NT. The heavy lifting in the development was done by IBM, and MS worked on the GUI elements, is my recollection.

Windows 3.1 was merely the GUI on DOS (which they got from elsewhere), which was also the base for Windows 95. I forget how far they went before DOS was abandoned, but anything with NT in it was code that was worked up by IBM originally for OS/2.

I also believe that most of the MS Office suite was originally bits and pieces that were bought by MS from others and then amalgamated. Though, this was common because, both the WordPerfect suite and the Lotus suite were originally bits and pieces put together by their respective owners.
 
For historical information, DOS was based on code purchased by Microsoft from Seattle Computing, which in turn was based on CP/M. It's a bit of simplification to say that it was simply "repackaged," as it had to be substantially adapted to run on IBM's hardware.
 
For historical information, DOS was based on code purchased by Microsoft from Seattle Computing, which in turn was based on CP/M. It's a bit of simplification to say that it was simply "repackaged," as it had to be substantially adapted to run on IBM's hardware.

I will happily admit that the history is more complicated than what I have posted. There are pages and pages written about it.

I just wanted to counter the assertion that Microsoft is "renowned" for writing software. And I will admit that they do a lot of software writing, and that they can do good stuff. I just don't think they are "renowned" for it. Its a quibble.
 
This thread reminded me of the hard crashes that used to happen in OS 9...where everything would instantly and completely stop until the computer was restarted. Happened almost daily depending on what I was doing.

That's happened to me one time in 7 years of using OS X, along with only 3 or 4 kernel panics. :)
 
For me, this sums it up for Microsoft. Good ideas, poor implementation. I'm actually excited about Windows 7 because it has (up till now) a small and efficient kernel. But I know that by the time its released, it will be bloated as hell. So, meh...

I don't think Kernel means what you think it means. Microsoft's NT-based Kernel is small and efficient.
 
Yes, very intentionally.

Microsoft bloats Vista and Direct X = Intel, Nvidia and all the RAM vendors get more hardware sales.

Vista is not bloated because of lazy coders, it is completely intentional.

What exactly do you mean by "bloat" here? People keep throwing that word around. In what way specifically is DirectX bloated, for example?
 
I don't think Kernel means what you think it means. Microsoft's NT-based Kernel is small and efficient.

Well, in terms of it being a microkernel then I agree. But then again the windows 7 kernel is even smaller and requires less hardware requirements to run than the current vista kernel.
 
Well, in terms of it being a microkernel then I agree. But then again the windows 7 kernel is even smaller and requires less hardware requirements to run than the current vista kernel.

Haven't they already said that Windows7 will be based on Vista, and won't be using the WinMin kernel? I'm pretty sure they have. They'll have refined it between Vista and Windows 7, sure, but the improvements from that will be small. And Windows' biggest problems are not in the Kernel.
 
Microsoft bloats Vista and Direct X = Intel, Nvidia and all the RAM vendors get more hardware sales.

Let me get this straight... MS spends money hiring programmers in India to do nothing but add fat to existing code so that OTHER COMPANIES can make more money while risking their own reputation? Makes sense. :rolleyes:
 
It has more code than needed, its code is poorly written, just various things that force it to use more resources than are needed.

Not really. DirectX is much more efficient as an API than OpenGL is. In fact half the fiasco with DirectX 10 is that Microsoft removed most of the old stuff and ceased support for all the pre-DirectX 10 ways of doing things.

DirectX 10 is substantially less bloated than its predecessors.
 
For me, this sums it up for Microsoft. Good ideas, poor implementation. I'm actually excited about Windows 7 because it has (up till now) a small and efficient kernel. But I know that by the time its released, it will be bloated as hell. So, meh...

People shouldn't talk about MinWin unless they know what it is. It's basically Microsoft's attempt to re-componentise the OS. It doesn't represent kernel changes as such, simply a reorganisation of existing code (for better in-house management). That said, performance has been a big issue with Windows 7.

Microsoft are being more adventurous with Vista. They're introducing new frameworks and new features, and not backporting them or restraining them for b/c. Take WDDM and how it's required for DX10 and the DWM.
 
Let me get this straight... MS spends money hiring programmers in India to do nothing but add fat to existing code so that OTHER COMPANIES can make more money while risking their own reputation? Makes sense. :rolleyes:

Actually, that is part of the Microsoft business plan. That is where the saying "What Andy giveth, Bill taketh away" originates. Since MS's sales come from OS bundled with new PCs, they are always looking for ways to make your PC grow too slow. The sooner, the better. Result: You buy a new PC, and pay MS again. I was amazed that they added full auto-defrag to Vista, since fragmentation had been one of their secret weapons. I guess they realized Vista was so slow, they would really be risking the product to make it any slower. And they were still too slow.

Apple doesn't follow the same path (or at least to a lesser extent) since they also get a big chunk of the hardware money, and as a challenger in the market, they gain more from expanding market share than from trying to milk the same buyers repeatedly.
 
Actually, that is part of the Microsoft business plan. That is where the saying "What Andy giveth, Bill taketh away" originates. Since MS's sales come from OS bundled with new PCs, they are always looking for ways to make your PC grow too slow. The sooner, the better. Result: You buy a new PC, and pay MS again. I was amazed that they added full auto-defrag to Vista, since fragmentation had been one of their secret weapons.

I've got to ask: Have you ever actually sat back and thought about how you sound to other people? "Secret weapon" indeed.
 
To the OP: If you're really interested in the history of the Mac OS and why the transition to OS X was necessary (yes, NECESSARY) for the survival of Apple, you might want to check out the book "Apple Confidential 2.0." It's a great history of Apple that's a fun read...
 
"Why did Apple rewrite Mac OS code? "

In my opinion, because they could. Given the very low marketshare, Apple was able to change their OS with minimal impact to the computing industry as a whole. Microsoft, unfortunately, doesn't have this luxury.
 
Let me get this straight... MS spends money hiring programmers in India to do nothing but add fat to existing code so that OTHER COMPANIES can make more money while risking their own reputation? Makes sense. :rolleyes:
Yes. Although your knowledge of who and how operating systems are made is completely inaccurate. It's called an incentive bonus. And all of the aforementioned companies are at the moment pretty much bent over a barrel by Microsoft.

What exactly do you mean by "bloat" here? People keep throwing that word around. In what way specifically is DirectX bloated, for example?
Let the OpenGL vs. Direct X benchmarks and features speak for themselves.
 
"Why did Apple rewrite Mac OS code? "

In my opinion, because they could. Given the very low marketshare, Apple was able to change their OS with minimal impact to the computing industry as a whole. Microsoft, unfortunately, doesn't have this luxury.

Moving from DOS to NT was a huge deal for Microsoft. A major change or par with Apple's move from Mac OS 9 and their Classic APIs to Mac OS X.
 
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