Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 218 posts

Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#161

Post by 3240957042358 »

r14c wrote: post #149
lostlogin wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need a better system. We tried communism and that was shit, so this is the least bad system we have.

We didn't try communism as far as I know. We hunted it down and murdered it in its cradle if I'm reading the CIA declassified archives correctly.

Communists having killed of 100 to 140 million people is sufficient reason to hunt them down.

But unfortunately there are still plenty of useful idiots, the same kind that propped up Mao, Pol Pot and Stalin.

Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#162

Post by spijdar »

userbinator wrote: post #155
ThrowawayB7 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what would you do with the Windows 2000 source? It's 32 bit x86 code and the driver model for Windows has changed significantly since those days so it wouldn't run on modern x86-64 hardware anyway. Maybe it would run in a VM but I wouldn't care to bet on it.

Port it to 64-bit, obviously; the NT kernel has already been ported to a few non-x86 architectures.

Making Windows NT 64-bit is very different from porting it to a 64-bit CPU. Case in point, the NT 4 (and Win2K) releases for the Alpha CPU were technically 64-bit (so far as the CPU lacked a "32-bit mode") but were functionally 32-bit, with all pointers truncated to 32-bits.

Further case in point -- the AXP64 port (64-bit Alpha) of NT didn't have the ability to run 32-bit Alpha software. If you want that, you have to develop WoW64. So in this hypothetical "port Win2k to 64-bit processors", you would need to create WoW64 from scratch. Alternatively, rebuild a lot of software which is old enough to run on Win2k but also aware of 64-bits.

Or take the AXP approach and literally treat AMD64 as a strange 32-bit CPU, not unlike the x32 port for Linux. At that point you have no binary ABI compatibility with any Windows port, and will need a custom compiler port, and compile all executables from scratch.

Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#163

Post by r14c »

3240957042358 wrote: post #161
r14c wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't try communism as far as I know. We hunted it down and murdered it in its cradle if I'm reading the CIA declassified archives correctly.

Communists having killed of 100 to 140 million people is sufficient reason to hunt them down. But unfortunately there are still plenty of useful idiots, the same kind that propped up Mao, Pol Pot and Stalin.

We kill people all the time, what's the difference? Isn't it a sovereign nation's prerogative to do whatever they want? That said, it is our prerogative to be nosy and violently mess with other people's affairs too so..

Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#164

Post by BubbleRings »

WalterBright wrote: post #48
andsoitis wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unless they used punch cards For MS-DOS?

Not likely. Punch cards disappeared around the end of 1976.

I learned COBOL in college at UNC-W on punch cards in 1980.

Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#165

Post by lostlogin »

3240957042358 wrote: post #161
r14c wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't try communism as far as I know. We hunted it down and murdered it in its cradle if I'm reading the CIA declassified archives correctly.

Communists having killed of 100 to 140 million people is sufficient reason to hunt them down. But unfortunately there are still plenty of useful idiots, the same kind that propped up Mao, Pol Pot and Stalin.

> Communists having killed of 100 to 140 million people is sufficient reason to hunt them down.

How many have democracies killed?

It’s not like-for-like but how do we compare?

Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#166

Post by zymhan »

formerly_proven wrote: post #63
ramon156 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think I've ever seen a commit that says "49 years ago". Damn.

https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo

I was confused by the short commit history, and then I checked the branches.

I love that someone went to this effort.

Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#169

Post by mapM »

ramon156 wrote: post #58
jmward01 wrote: post #23

It is rare that I say this but, thanks MS! Arguably just as, if not more, important is the BASIC that they wrote. That was what they actually wanted to do. DOS just got them the contract with IBM. For decades MS was really a developer tools company with a side biz of writing operating systems and other misc software. They also open sourced that BASIC code too [1]. [1] https://opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2025/09/03/…

I dont think I've ever seen a commit that says "49 years ago". Damn.

It's funny that the .gitignore is marked as being from 49 years ago ...

Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#170

Post by r14c »

lostlogin wrote: post #165
3240957042358 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communists having killed of 100 to 140 million people is sufficient reason to hunt them down. But unfortunately there are still plenty of useful idiots, the same kind that propped up Mao, Pol Pot and Stalin.

> Communists having killed of 100 to 140 million people is sufficient reason to hunt them down. How many have democracies killed? It’s not like-for-like but how do we compare?

I would read that meta study. Especially if they verify and compare methods.
Post reply on HN