you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

Unix was designed for mainframes, qdos/msdos was designed to be a cpm knockoff the local nerd could use to play commander keen and do his taxes. It's actually impressive how much modern/business functionality they were able to cram into that.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [โ€“] 5 points 2 years ago

    Unix was designed for mainframes

    Unix was never for mainframes. It was for 16-bit minicomputers that sat below mainframes, but yes they were more advanced than the first personal computers.

    Itโ€™s actually impressive how much modern/business functionality they were able to cram into that.

    Absolutely, but you have to admit that it's a less solid foundation to build a modern operating system on.

    In the 80s, there were several Unices for PC too btw: AT&T, SCO, even Microsoft's own Xenix. Most of them were prohibitively expensive though.

  • source
  • parent