*BSD News Article 80413


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From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: *** Is FreeBSD easy to install ??? ***
Date: 8 Oct 1996 23:24:48 GMT
Organization: Private BSD site, Dresden
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jin@george.lbl.gov (Jin Guojun[ITG]) wrote:

> DOS is an operating system even though MS-DOS is a junk designed
> O.S. by whoever wrote it. The basic O.S. function is to load program
> for human being.

No.  The basic function of an OS is to handle the hardware.  DOS
handles the hardware so poor that most programs handle it on their
own.  That's why the programs are unportable, you cannot even replace
the graphics console by a serial console for 99.9 % of them (with the
minor exceptions of command.com and symdeb.exe).

Basically, the only DOS service that is moderately in use is the
filesystem.

-- 
cheers, J"org

joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)