Baslinux mailing list

["Greg Mayman" <gmone AT tpg.com.au>]

On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 14:12:36 +0000, Lee Forrest wrote:

> I meant that windows was built on MSDOS, which it was.

>From Windows 1.0 up to Win98 it was just another application,
like thousands of other DOS applications, such text editors,
word processors, web browsers, comms programs, graphics programs,
CAD packages, and so on.

Then later they decided to build the DOS into Windows, thus
making it impossible to use DOS independently.

I suspect that was because some people were booting cleanly into
DOS, and manually editing some of the functions, like removing
Explorer to make Windows run faster, and naturally that had to be
stopped!

The so-called 'DOS Window' that is opened from within Windows
GUI, is NOT the same as running DOS independently, as many people
have found to their cost.

> Just because an OS can be run from the commandline doesn't mean
> it is like linux/unix.

Not 100% like it, but the fact that it _can_ be run from a
command line is one way it _is_ like linux/unix.

You get a prompt of some kind, you type in a command, you hit
enter, and the command is executed.

"Gee whilikers! DOS is just like Linux, isn't it!"

> If they use basically the same OS as MSDOS, then they have a
> _lot_ to do with it.

But these other DOSes do NOT use the same OS as MS-DOS!

They were developed completely independently, often to overcome
deficiencies that were seen in MS-DOS. That is why they have
different names, like DrDOS, FreeDOS and so on.

They are as alike as Ford and General Motors; their products are
superficially similar, and they do similar work in similar ways,
but they are not the same, and are not related.

> wget is a non-interactive web tool.

I've used wget for DOS, but the linux version seems to be
different in several respects.

Thanks for that little tutorial. Just reading through it has told
me several things that I didn't even know I needed to know.

Now to try the exercises <GGG>

.   ,-./\
.  /     \     from Greg Mayman, in Adelaide, South Australia
.  \_,-*_/     "Queen City of The South"    34:55 S  138:36 E
.       v