Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/09/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Gee, for a post purporting to correct someone else's, there are a lot of errors here. 2007-09-01-00:14:05 Bill Larsen: > You are forgetting a lot of things. The Osborne was not a laptop, it > was a computer where the screen disconected from the case with a cable > still there Nope. The monitor was fixed in the case, between the floppy drives. Just the keyboard hinged down. > (and I never weighed the thing... but I think it was closer > to 35 lbs).. More like 24, FWIW. > It was introduced after IBM brought out their PC. April, 1981: Osborne 1 August, 1981: IBM PC (1982: Kaypro II, another important part of this story) > The OS was CPM which was a derivative of "Microsoft-IBM DOS. Uh, no. CP/M, an OS for 8-bit microprocessors with strong interface similarities to some of the simpler DEC monitors for the PDP-11 minicomputers, dates back at least as far as 1974, and was being commercialized by 1977. MS-DOS is derived from CP/M-80. Digital Research, Gary Kildall's company which provided CP/M, eventually made a CP/M version compatible enough with the later MS-DOS's application interface to be used in its place. I routinely preferred DR-DOS to MS-DOS, both for efficiency and for reduced bugginess, but once Microsoft realized they were in danger of having their market cannibalized by a superior product, they resorted to their usual anticompetitive practices to kill DR-DOS. -Jeff M