[Thermodyne]

Well, back in the day there were lots of OS’s for small computers. IBM was running DOS which it got from MS. And MS did not steal DOS; they just made a very good deal to get it. People were not buying many computers for home or desktop use. It took a few years to learn to operate them and there were not a lot of boxed apps. Then Windows came along and people started buying personal computers. Then developers demanded 32bit support and better memory management, so Win 95 hit the shelves. But it was still DOS. NT hit the business world about the same time, and was more stable than 95, but not as easy to use and with few home user bells and whistles. The ease of use with 95 caused sales to take off, and prices began to fall. Then 98 and 98se came along as improvements of 95. But they were still DOS and had memory and driver issues. So then we got 98me which didn’t support kernel loaded drivers, but had poor legacy support and suffered from a lot of poorly written drivers from developers that were having to relearn writing drivers. And it had no way to stop you from loading DOS based drivers into the kernel, and were at the mercy of the driver supplier. At about this time, NT5 is ready to test, and someone got the idea to add bells and whistles to it so the home user would buy it. So then we got 2K which addressed the memory issues and got the drivers out of the root kernel once and for all and solved most of the driver burn downs. Developers had experience writing NT drivers, but there were still a lot of poorly written ones being pushed out. Also, it wouldn’t run a lot of legacy software. So the we get NT6 or Windows XP. It addresses driver problems by asking you not to install unapproved versions. And it will run most old software if you have the ability to read some directions and implement them. It also has lots of stuff for the home user and other stuff for the business world. Problem was that NT memory management was more or less maxed out and hacking had become main stream. Some of the best developers in the world were busy finding ways into other peoples computers. So MS decides to dump NT and bring a new OS to market. They asked the hardware world to make some changes, and started writing code. While this was going on, it suddenly got hard to copy write code. A single line of base everyday code could bring down a million lines if someone had included it in some other million lines of code. And the hardware peeps said no to almost every change they were asked to make. Although better memory management did see the light of day in 64 bit. So now we are about to get Longhorn. It has been forced to use NT core code because hardware is still x86, but has better memory management and much better driver handling. A lot of the new features have never gotten out of legal, and others will not be included because antitrust has done its best to pull MS back down the level of third world code shops. But it will be a step forward.

Start Rant/

IMHO, the world should have a standardized operating system and it should not be free. Every PC should run on it so that every user could operate every PC. And people should make money from it, so that there will always be people willing to invest large parts of their lives working on improving it. IPv6 should be pushed out asap, and with that done, hackers should be run to ground and harshly punished. Something along the lines of 10 years in supermax with meal time being bobbing for apples in boiling acid. The developed world should have fiber to every home and business. And the undeveloped world should be left the FUC alone. When they evolve beyond their stupid tribal methods of organization and draconian religious fantasies, we’ll welcome them with open arms. Until then, we should not pull the advanced parts of the world down to their level. You can buy a PC with MS OS and Apps for $500 US, and the money that is pilfered from UN aid packages to the third world would pay for an IPv6 rollout in three years. And while I’m on this rant, the USofA gave the world the PC, a user friendly OS, the internet, and the hardware and code to make it work. The rest of the world should shut the FUC up and not try to take it over. If they don’t like it, they should just cut the wires and put up something of their own. With their own hardware designs, their own code, and built in their own fabs. I’m sorry, but it just makes me LOL. If this ever happened, can you imagine what would come to be in Iran? The PC would shut down several times a day for prayers. Visit a porno site and the PC would kill you. Or what would the old USSR’s version of the internet have been like? Go to the wrong web site and there would be a knock on the door. Order a new PC and get on a thirty year waiting list. What about some more advanced countries, 8088’s and 14k would be the standard so long as it was all supplied by in country industry. And every summer it would all shut down for three weeks. And lastly, what if Billy G had never taken the risk, and we were still using whatever IBM had to offer. There would be a 100 OS’s each serving 1/2% of the market on proprietary systems and something from IBM that took a masters degree to use running on the rest. Well perhaps not that bad, but you can bet that we would have a lot less than we have now and we would be paying a lot more for it.