On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Clem Cole wrote:

> ​Networking not so much.  You definitely could (and people did/do) add
> networking to executives.  In those days, DEC has DECnet for their systems
> (including MS-DOS) and today in the IoT world, I use many of my Arduino's
> with network connections.  But I the programing is very much like it was in
> my DOS-8/DOS-11/RT-11 days.

I've seen TSR network stacks for MS-DOS; I don't *use* such, but they 
exist.

> ​We ran V7 on 8" floppies (SA800's from Shugart Associates IIRC).  These
> were ~ 256K each.  You did have to swap disks in/out a little as Marc
> described.   You booted from one Floppy and replaced it with a "root" FS
> floppy after the OS loaded.   But it all could and did fit.  You had ad
> editor, the compilers, etc.

I think that's how Minix worked on 5.25" floppies too, if I remember how I 
got it up on my old Tandy 1000EX.

> So it all come back to my basic point.   The PC and MS-DOS >>could<< have
> been made to be in the image of UNIX easily; if people had cared or it was
> needed/desired.   But economics caused it to stay in "all its crapiness"
> not technology.

I think OS/2 was certainly closer to Unix than MS-DOS was.

-uso.