From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Sun Feb 9 10:13:45 2020 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.nyi.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2610:1c1:1:606c::19:1]) by mailman.nyi.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 811AF233B10 for ; Sun, 9 Feb 2020 10:13:45 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mout.kundenserver.de (mout.kundenserver.de [212.227.17.24]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (Client CN "mout.kundenserver.de", Issuer "TeleSec ServerPass Class 2 CA" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 48FlHW3z3Jz3x4v for ; Sun, 9 Feb 2020 10:13:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from r56.edvax.de ([178.8.37.143]) by mrelayeu.kundenserver.de (mreue107 [212.227.15.183]) with ESMTPA (Nemesis) id 1MsIfc-1joZ3u1ePa-00tmgW; Sun, 09 Feb 2020 11:13:40 +0100 Date: Sun, 9 Feb 2020 11:13:39 +0100 From: Polytropon To: "Steve O'Hara-Smith" Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Re updating BIOS Message-Id: <20200209111339.6e42f4b8.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <20200209084111.8d9764a128bab47ee1c19a86@sohara.org> References: <202002090809.01989xgi025440@sdf.org> <20200209084111.8d9764a128bab47ee1c19a86@sohara.org> Reply-To: Polytropon Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Provags-ID: V03:K1:t85JHYP6PeiMz2hvOXOjrwFST7x9ml0uZ+SXkamu3bQZKSbhDQQ 6zRe5i+D+q4FUCswitSOyc1VzLAlXHiNwwQkN92JbuOBg8DFglLYPVHnjYs0a8/xbLCEgpr xNauZqUcL6l2Pp/3S0B+aBVkZ2V8VNcqwbCGRiEoScBG1xQ01RaiGnxDF4S8es5Xs5XmkHe 6C6oB5y/p+dfUITydXEdg== X-Spam-Flag: NO X-UI-Out-Filterresults: notjunk:1;V03:K0:4sfXnnB+ZLA=:TA9kjCtMBujg2GsKvAUain ghYJTJFbbWiV9uH2DoipsZFJsMbW7aX//wr2KmP5sewjuuoVap1q1CYYlVIjgsr8PbsYZjzed wCTgcAqeHcjNcRTZG/jeJSlqCadkv8xk1nYQC9g2skj3ViCw2TXIBUoVY9XdyfiPBew9GbYM1 xfiKKBA+L7j51oH7t5la1RH+f027wErp0Yp2aLhuHPogDlN/NoCjCutTdl0ntisQ6FU8rz+Cl 5+Z99Xhe3S8qL02lFqjdjOvHmSSx6rsnuTS/+Vq15P1yCtHf9Jwgy8d4wHbPlB2hCjtAUB2Ie BV1zPCmf6guMyWwDNSxkPOHzmKwysZpQD59fe7vqe/J0eHn3ZlUZhRPKT843TnntcX11azGRW x5r8U6k7vVoLFsdaSxoAjkvYlMckSMBGhveimTXBKP3OxSk7HqjMnSO2wuVN3wYcPgFaV6JnW etryk1ZQvOHYD5BBcyXOsQ+tHcg++9Xtxxlj6n0oOhxKv5xZrpy34gKqpyspsxw4TNZnMPnrM LddIx7BQdPgboCGnMHnCieWocAsi6cZkLoo9/qK2oATlLgOKTW19+rpOx5/PU/svV0QryaD2K ErPaUpg/MGKY0Au8DkJ3D9J79Z4DqpJ24FPCE3RxPoHyvqUHcv3EwMCd7uiUfHzdWhY0eTLI6 RdOvKiJ2pi6tEiTjcrtSK/nqJm+7zWMuTOlN8JtzUDLjgCxAxf4HAJRWMC5HCcMzZ+UX7lmQI fMjPIUydk3nAgzUvpQ6wV7RbQYIySGdvpprlup7B0plqt8Qy/23NJhuXaL9NI1pb0JHG60Kom QUiMBfeyqgw4gV09UVteObUBBU8jQRfr5Pqal7BN03OcNXBrCRpLRB5GL6/ymurAR8QsAzz X-Rspamd-Queue-Id: 48FlHW3z3Jz3x4v X-Spamd-Bar: +++ Authentication-Results: mx1.freebsd.org; dkim=none; dmarc=none; spf=none (mx1.freebsd.org: domain of freebsd@edvax.de has no SPF policy when checking 212.227.17.24) smtp.mailfrom=freebsd@edvax.de X-Spamd-Result: default: False [3.07 / 15.00]; RCVD_VIA_SMTP_AUTH(0.00)[]; HAS_REPLYTO(0.00)[freebsd@edvax.de]; TO_DN_SOME(0.00)[]; MV_CASE(0.50)[]; HAS_ORG_HEADER(0.00)[]; RCPT_COUNT_TWO(0.00)[2]; FROM_EQ_ENVFROM(0.00)[]; R_DKIM_NA(0.00)[]; MIME_TRACE(0.00)[0:+]; ASN(0.00)[asn:8560, ipnet:212.227.0.0/16, country:DE]; RCVD_TLS_LAST(0.00)[]; RECEIVED_SPAMHAUS_PBL(0.00)[143.37.8.178.khpj7ygk5idzvmvt5x4ziurxhy.zen.dq.spamhaus.net : 127.0.0.11]; ARC_NA(0.00)[]; NEURAL_HAM_MEDIUM(-0.48)[-0.481,0]; REPLYTO_EQ_FROM(0.00)[]; FROM_HAS_DN(0.00)[]; MIME_GOOD(-0.10)[text/plain]; DMARC_NA(0.00)[edvax.de]; AUTH_NA(1.00)[]; TO_MATCH_ENVRCPT_SOME(0.00)[]; NEURAL_SPAM_LONG(1.00)[0.995,0]; RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE(0.00)[24.17.227.212.list.dnswl.org : 127.0.5.0]; MID_CONTAINS_FROM(1.00)[]; R_SPF_NA(0.00)[]; RCVD_COUNT_TWO(0.00)[2]; IP_SCORE(0.16)[ip: (-0.31), ipnet: 212.227.0.0/16(-1.11), asn: 8560(2.23), country: DE(-0.02)] X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 09 Feb 2020 10:13:45 -0000 On Sun, 9 Feb 2020 08:41:11 +0000, Steve O'Hara-Smith wrote: > On Sun, 09 Feb 2020 02:09:59 -0600 > Scott Bennett wrote: > > > The first part of the above, mispunctuated pair of sentences is > > correct, but the latter part is not. FreeDOS, like PC-DOS and MSDOS > > before it, is/was not an operating system, but rather a more primitive > > creature known as a monitor system. > > The DOS part of those names is an abbreviation of 'Disc Operating > System' - [...] The common way of spelling here is "disk"; "disc" usually refers to optical media. Smaller disks were called diskettes. For example, the first prominent use of DOS was "IBM Disk Operating System /360", or DOS/360, whose naming convention was later used for microcomputer operating systems based on the use of hard disks or diskettes, even though the "conceptual bowels" of those microcomputer and PC operating systems have more in common with CP/CMS than with DOS/360. > [...] clearly at the time they were considered operating systems even > though they started life as near clones of CP/M (Control Program/Monitor). > IBM 360 mainframes didn't have virtual memory, processes or any of the > protections you mentioned, it didn't even have anything that would be > recognised as a filesystem today (it had record oriented datasets) - but > OS360 was definitely considered an operating system. It even carried that intention in its name. ;-) There are many different criteria (without a common consensus) of what actually makes an operating system. Some consider the compiler a required part of the OS, others don't. Some say that process monitoring and control needs to be part of the OS, others consider it optional. Personally, I'd say that understanding DOS (for the PC) as an operating system is valid, sure, with limited capabilities, but seen in the context of the time it was developed and used, it surely fulfilled the critera usually used in the microcomputer and PC area. > [MS/PC/DR/Free]DOS was a lot more like a mainframe batch operating > system than a multi-user multi-tasking operating system such as Multics or > unix, but hijacking the term operating system to mean only the latterm, and > that only with hardware supported isolation mechanisms is revisionist. I > recall working on a unix(ish) system in the late 1980s that didn't have > hardware memory mapping or protection, or even fsck which made recovering > from (the frequent) crashes rather tedious (icheck, ncheck ...). A little sidenote regarding terminology in context of history: If I remember correctly, early versions of CP/M, which is the primary predecessor of all the DOSes, inherited a lot from CP/CMS, an operating system typically run using the VM operating system (we would probably call VM/370 a hypervisor today), even though it was possible, at least for some time, to run CMS on bare metal. During further development, it became dependent on VM. The user-facing part of CMS was the CP, the control program (that's why CP/CMS means "control program / conversational monitor system). It had things later known in CP/M, such as the dialog-oriented command line interface, and "Minidisks" - those became "drive letters" in CP/M, as well as filenames associated with specific data sets (mamaged through VM and its virtualization of storage and access). Later, DOS inherited the drive letters and many other conceptual ideas from CP/M. So - yes, the past is still alive. NB: DOSes = plural of DOS; DOS/ES = an operating system. ;-) -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...