On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 07:47:43 -0500, "George" george@least wrote:


"Doug Miller" wrote in message
.com...
In article , Bruce Barnett
wrote:

If Microsoft never existed, we would still have cheap software.

Probably _better_ software, too...


But would we have a standardized operating system to run it?


I suspect in a saner world, something like CPM or Concurrent CPM would
have emerged victorious. CCPM was doing multi-tasking (or at least
multiple contexts) back when MSDOS was just happy to access disk drives
and run a single program.

Probably would have been more intelligent to have had a standards body
design the op system (or had one of the OS vendors offer their OS to said
body). Then multiple vendors could have competed to implement that OS.
While those kinds of things can lead to problems (mis-interpretations,
etc), it could also have had some significant benefits. Even if only a few
vendors survived future competitive thinning, the differences in
implementations would have reduced vulnerability to virus problems, since
it would be unlikely that the same holes would exist in all implemenations.




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The absence of accidents does not mean the presence of safety
Army General Richard Cody
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