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Open Sourcing DOS 4

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Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#191

Post by justinclift »

drey08 wrote: post #154
Stratoscope wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walter, you and I have known each other for a long time. Not in person; we've never met. But through our interactions here on HN. I have a lot of respect for you and for everything you have accomplished. So I have to ask you directly: Is being "boring" or not the way we should decide how to express ourselves? Regarding a "quick test" vs. a "sanity test". Instead of judging this on what is "boring", why can't we make…

Have you ever heard someone get called slow? That's an insult too. So now you have quick tests. That's disrespectful towards me because I got called slow once. This can go on forever.

"The test who is on a performance-improvement-plan" ;)

Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#192

Post by bilekas »

pavlov wrote: post #175

When I was nine years old, I liked poking around with a hex editor on my dad’s PC. I didn’t speak English and MS-DOS wasn’t yet localized to Finnish in 1989, so I decided to try translating it myself with a dictionary by manually finding and replacing strings in the SYS/COM files. The result worked and my dad was suitably impressed, if probably a bit peeved that nothing worked anymore in the shell as expected (since…

> MS-DOS wasn’t yet localized to Finnish in 1989

That's genuinely something today I appreciate but when putting the 10th floppy in to update windows3.x. relative these days!

> it feels a bit sad that today’s kids can’t get the same feeling that the computer

Can't agree more. trying to get my cousins and nephews interested is in their term "Not important"

Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#193

Post by justin66 »

shanselman wrote: post #134
_mlbt wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your hard work on open sourcing this! If you’re taking requests I’d love to see MS-DOS 5.0 or at least QBasic next.

Yep, I need to get 3.3 and then do 5, 6

Ironically those words capture how those of us who bought a computer with DOS 4.00 felt about it. :D

But this is really great.

Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#194

Post by justin66 »

macdice wrote: post #171
shanselman wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's valid feedback. There is no clock, but there maybe should be. In this case, yes, Jeff and I had to PUSH. And that's a hassle. I'll ask around.

This is fantastic work, thanks. Hmm, what else... let's see... Xenix also really, really wants to be free! What a magnificent piece of forgotten computer history it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix

That actually would be pretty wild.

Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#195

Post by Karellen »

Wait, why is `git pull` for an OS that ran on computers with memory and floppy-disk sizes measured in 100s of KiB taking more than a couple of seconds to download?

...Oh, there's 100MiB of PDFs in there, which are high-resolution scans of the paper technical documentation. Fair enough.

Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#196

Post by lm2s »

pavlov wrote: post #175

When I was nine years old, I liked poking around with a hex editor on my dad’s PC. I didn’t speak English and MS-DOS wasn’t yet localized to Finnish in 1989, so I decided to try translating it myself with a dictionary by manually finding and replacing strings in the SYS/COM files. The result worked and my dad was suitably impressed, if probably a bit peeved that nothing worked anymore in the shell as expected (since…

I did that with GTA, translating it to Portuguese. It was then that I learned that I could overwrite the strings with the Hex Editor, but not insert anything because it would stop working. And thus began my dive into computers.

Great memories, thanks for making me remember it.

* Actually now that I really think about it, it wasn't with an Hex Editor, it was with Edit! Fun times.

Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#197

Post by redox99 »

grishka wrote: post #125
lchengify wrote: post #12

So if MS-DOS 4 was released in 1986, and it is now 2024, that's a 37 year gap between release and open source. That means Windows XP should be open sourced by ... 2038. Not as far away as it seems. I'll add it to my calendar.

I doubt Microsoft would ever open-source any NT Windows versions because the current ones are based on the same code, just with added touchscreen nonsense, adware, and overt contempt for the user. We may see Windows 9x open-sourced. But then again, it's a stretch because Win32 API is still in wide use today. Releasing the sources for 32-bit Windows versions even this old may have an adverse effect on Microsoft's mark…

> Releasing the sources for 32-bit Windows versions even this old may have an adverse effect on Microsoft's market domination.

I disagree that releasing Windows 9x source code would have any impact on MS market domination.

> I doubt Microsoft would ever open-source any NT Windows versions because the current ones are based on the same code

Nowadays releasing something NT like XP may seem crazy. But in 15 years it will be so far away from future Windows, that it won't be that crazy.

Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#198

Post by ssdspoimdsjvv »

saagarjha wrote: post #144
NewsaHackO wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some insight, look how people are combing for curse words/ devs making jokes about people being brain damaged etc. There is no upside for the company, and all that has to happen is some unsavory politically incorrect joke to get missed from sanitization and the are on the cancelled chopping block.

No upside for the company? Do you not see all the people who are delighted to be able to browse the code?

No commercial upside for sure. Just some extra reputation points among a very niche group and maybe some happy employees.

Re: Open Sourcing DOS 4

#199

Post by Karellen »

shanselman wrote: post #47
rwl4 wrote: post #11

Weird that for a couple minutes, these paths existed: * https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS/tree/main/v4.0/bin * https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS/tree/main/v4.0/bin/DISK1 * https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS/tree/main/v4.0/pdf But they disappeared as I browsed the repo. I guess they didn't want that part public? Edit: I knew I wasn't seeing things! Somebody forked it along with those files: https://github.com/Own…

Ya sorry we're moving stuff around

Why is that, no matter how much you check and proofread your work before you push/publish, you'll always find something obvious you missed 5 minutes after it's gone up?

To change a public branch, or not to change a public branch, that is the question.

Edit: Muphry's law strikes again - s/or to not/or not to/

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