[ale] (OT) Fate of SCO

[Jim Kinney]

I recall the DR DOS mess was related to the windows 3x looking for a
"microsoft" text string to exist in order install windows 3. Digital
Research built a DR DOS that only changed the id string and windows loaded
and ran just fine. But the damage was already done and no pc maker would
ship anything but msdos for fear that the coming windows wouldn't run on it.

I thought QDOS was a command prompt overlay similar to the Linux Midnight
Commander.

Heh, heh! Thanks to QDOS and my 6 week old daughter, I learned how to
install an operating system. I was formatting a new box of floppies using
the QDOS interface with infant in arms asleep. To toggle between drive A:
and C: required using the spacebar. The command to format was set up and all
I had to do was insert floppy and hit enter, remove and repeat. An instant
before my finger hit the enter key to start another floppy format, a tiny
foot twitched in sleep and hit the space bar. C: was fresh and clean and
there was no stopping it!

Of course it was only 3 floppies to reinstall at the time...

Slackware a few years later required 7 to get base plus networking stack.

On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 11:00 AM, Lightner, Jeff <jlightner at water.com> wrote:

> Really sad.
>
> In its day I made my living on SCO UNIX and rather liked it.   I
> disagree with the comment about it only being used for cash registers.
> We had over 2000 sites that were running it as their central systems.
> One thing I liked about SCO then was that they were hardware agnostic
> (other than requiring x86 based stuff).   Most other UNIX flavors at the
> time required you to run on their hardware.
>
> At another company we used Caldera and thought it was a good product for
> corporate desktops.   They had licensed WABI from Sun so all the UNIX
> Admins were able to have Linux workstations but still run the Windows
> apps dictated by the company for desktops.   Unfortunately WABI didn't
> work with Windows 95 so when we went away from Windows 3.11 we had to
> get Windows Desktops.   Back then WINE was in its infancy and reportedly
> didn't work with quite a few apps.
>
> Interesting they don't mention the failed lawsuits against MS based on
> DR DOS.   My recollection is a guy started suing MS when he was at
> Digital based on DR DOS and then when he moved to SCO he bought DR DOS
> from Digital so he could reinitiate the lawsuit.   I wonder if it was
> this same Darl guy.
> (I gather that suit actually had some merit - from what I've heard it
> seems MS bought QDOS (quick and dirty operating system) which was a
> thinly veiled clone of CP/M and DR DOS was the successor to CP/M.   On
> the flip side Digital apparently annoyed the hell out of IBM when Bill
> Gates first sent IBM their way as he didn't own an OS.   When IBM came
> back to MS Bill bought QDOS and sold non-exclusive licenses to IBM.
> That non-exclusivity was what built the MS empire because he was then
> able to sell DOS to any clone PC manufacturer.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of
> Charles Shapiro
> Sent: Friday, April 08, 2011 9:59 AM
> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!
> Subject: [ale] (OT) Fate of SCO
>
> I guess Pam is moving closer to Red Skirt Day.
>
> Groklaw has this comment on the MORs from the SCO bankruptcy case:
>
> The SCO Group as we knew it is no more, I conclude, ladies and
> gentlemen. It is become a wasteland, where occasional desultory winds
> move the tumbleweeds aimlessly here and there down the dusty and
> nearly empty streets.
>
> Don't Mess with the Nazgul (
> http://ipw.scofacts.org/ipw-2004-11-4-193645-965.html ).
>
> -- CHS
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
I would rather stumble along in freedom than walk effortlessly in chains.
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