Stupid CP/M question

From: Miles O'Neal <meo_at_netads.com>
Date: Sun Jan 10 14:29:23 1999

Allison J Parent said...
|
|DOS used to be a generic as well for "disk operating system".

Technically, it still is generic. The problem was when
the PC (a term that should have stayed generic, but IBM
managed to co-opt) was mass marketed, the masses couldn't
deal with the fact tat there were two DOS versions available
(PC-DOS and MS-DOS), so they just started saying "DOS".
The trade press, of course, used DOS generically, but as
the trade press moved into the mass market, where people
were only looking at the PC stuff (for the most part),
where DOS refered to whatever xxDOS was running, and the
actual OS was only mentioned when necessary, the masses
naturally came to assume DOS meant "the OS running on my
IBM PC". Since MS eventually won that war, the masses
assumed DOS was short for MS-DOS.

SO when I see DOS in a group like this, I generally assume
it means "Disk Operating System", unless otherwise specified.
The Compucolor, an dthe Apple ][, for instance, both ran a
DOS that was tied in with BASIC. Not exactly what's running
on your average Intel-compatible-processor-based system today.

-Miles

Language is schizo. As technologists, we dare not let it
slide into meaninglessness and fluid slang with ever-changing
meaning. As members of society, who have to deal with those
who are not technologists, we sometimes have no choice but to
speak the language as they do.
Received on Sun Jan 10 1999 - 14:29:23 GMT