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DOS Ain't Done Til Lotus Won't Run? (2005)

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Re: DOS Ain't Done Til Lotus Won't Run? (2005)

#21

Post by yuhong »

berkeleynerd wrote: post #19
mmastrac wrote: post #2

While this article is dated, a more appropriate reference would be the Windows/DR-DOS kerfuffle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code

This. It's damning. I was an attentive nerd when this and the Stacker scandal went down and I was outraged. I've been a staunch open source advocate ever since. Microsoft's willingness to sabotage competitor's software is an established fact. "The AARD code was a segment of code in a beta release of Microsoft Windows 3.1 that would determine whether Windows was running on MS-DOS or PC DOS, rather than a competing wor…

Yea, there was a reason why I mentioned DR-DOS when I was discussing the OS/2 2.0 fiasco.

Re: DOS Ain't Done Til Lotus Won't Run? (2005)

#22

Post by yuhong »

digi_owl wrote: post #15
delonia wrote: post #3

The author of that article says "I know from personal experience that today [2005] Microsoft takes application compatibility very seriously". And if you want to install Windows on a computer that already has a Linux distribution installed (dual-boot), then Windows will replace the existing boot manager, making it really difficult to boot Linux. That thing used to happen then, and it still happens now (2015).

OS/2 is perhaps not the best example, as early on it was a MS/IBM collaborative project. And even afterwards it had the economic backing of IBM. So if MS got overt about it, there would likely have been a lawsuit. There is less risk of such from Linux. Even at their current size, RH is a flea next to MS.

That OS/2 2.0 fiasco used to be my favorite topic and I do have bad things to say against MS about it.

Re: DOS Ain't Done Til Lotus Won't Run? (2005)

#23

Post by mrspeaker »

shubhamjain wrote: post #11

I recall story of leaked Win2k source code which was filled with profanity and ugly hacks. Surprising fact was how much effort was put in to make software suites work with windows [1]. Although these are ugly hacks but it is a general reminder that people who will buy the software won't see why some obscure bad pointer in MS Office is causing this but something that used to work perfectly fine in previous Windows doe…

It's so strange you mentioned the Win2K source leak - I was just thinking about this yesterday. I remember at the time there was warnings about it on Slashdot along the lines of "Don't download/read the source code, else you'll be 'tainted' and won't be able to commit code to Open Source projects!"

Has it been long enough that I dare peek at it now? ;)

Re: DOS Ain't Done Til Lotus Won't Run? (2005)

#24

Post by rilindo »

I been around IT long enough to know that this statement:

"DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run"

Was never a common saying. It is actually:

"DOS ain't done till Lotus runs"

I am not sure how it devolved to the current usage. I suspect it is probably started after the Microsoft-DOJ trials.

Re: DOS Ain't Done Til Lotus Won't Run? (2005)

#25

Post by jcranmer »

untog wrote: post #10
delonia wrote: post #3

The author of that article says "I know from personal experience that today [2005] Microsoft takes application compatibility very seriously". And if you want to install Windows on a computer that already has a Linux distribution installed (dual-boot), then Windows will replace the existing boot manager, making it really difficult to boot Linux. That thing used to happen then, and it still happens now (2015).

I don't see how those two things are in any way connected. The point they were making is that you might even be able take a Windows 3.1 app (but definitely a Windows 95 one) and run it on Windows 8.

Actually, you can't do Windows 3.1: Microsoft ripped out the Win16 subsystem in Windows 7.

Re: DOS Ain't Done Til Lotus Won't Run? (2005)

#27

Post by yuhong »

jcranmer wrote: post #25
untog wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how those two things are in any way connected. The point they were making is that you might even be able take a Windows 3.1 app (but definitely a Windows 95 one) and run it on Windows 8.

Actually, you can't do Windows 3.1: Microsoft ripped out the Win16 subsystem in Windows 7.

They didn't. You can still enable it in 32-bit Win10 I think.

Re: DOS Ain't Done Til Lotus Won't Run? (2005)

#28

Post by creshal »

yuhong wrote: post #27
jcranmer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, you can't do Windows 3.1: Microsoft ripped out the Win16 subsystem in Windows 7.

They didn't. You can still enable it in 32-bit Win10 I think.

16-bit compatibility only exists in the 32-bit version, no longer in the 64-bit one. Same as every x64 version since XP64.

Re: DOS Ain't Done Til Lotus Won't Run? (2005)

#29

Post by PaulHoule »

shubhamjain wrote: post #11

I recall story of leaked Win2k source code which was filled with profanity and ugly hacks. Surprising fact was how much effort was put in to make software suites work with windows [1]. Although these are ugly hacks but it is a general reminder that people who will buy the software won't see why some obscure bad pointer in MS Office is causing this but something that used to work perfectly fine in previous Windows doe…

I dunno, that tabs to spaces problem makes me pretty angry too, particularly if your tooling is weak.

Tab wars can drive your version control system crazy managing changes that don't matter unless they are using python.

Re: DOS Ain't Done Til Lotus Won't Run? (2005)

#30

Post by apaprocki »

yuhong wrote: post #27
jcranmer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, you can't do Windows 3.1: Microsoft ripped out the Win16 subsystem in Windows 7.

They didn't. You can still enable it in 32-bit Win10 I think.

I wonder if Solaris ABI compat is actually older than the Windows stuff. Solaris to this day maintains binary compat with older releases and, for example, a 32-bit fopen() will fail once you open 255 streams because that was the limit in the ancient ABI. Everyone using Solaris at one point or another has probably hit this and it caused some issue, but Sun^H^H^HOracle refuses to make modern operation the default, all in the name of ancient binary compat. That's a bit more hardcore than optional support you can enable.
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