alt Hacker NewsYeah I saw that when going down my rabbit hole. Definitely a cool and useful thing for what it is.
I just think that Concurrent DOS is cool because it is proper multitasking; proper time slicing and everything! And you could have multiple users logging into the same computer with terminals, à la Unix, all in the mid 80s!
I have been trying to track down whoever the hell owns the license to Concurrent/Multiuser DOS to try and make a case for them to release the source code, but I have had a heck of a time getting ahold of anyone that might be able to point me in the right direction. I suspect the rights for it now reside with OpenText or something and they don’t even realize it.
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> I have been trying to track down whoever the hell owns the license to Concurrent/Multiuser DOS to try and make a case for them to release the source code
Yeah, me too.
You can read a little of the results of my digging here:
https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/04/the_many_derivatives_...
Happy to compare notes -- my email is in my profile, or I'm easily Googled.
Well, these days, Google will tell you I'm an aardvark or some other bot slop, but you can find me. I always use this screen name everywhere.
I think the main problem was that systems to take advantage of it tended to be either fully bespoke or were produced in runs of dozens or hundreds at most. Customisation and installation (including wiring the terminals, in the days before networking was common) were protracted processes as well.
As a result, they were priced against the low-end of mid-range systems - so rather more than you might expect from looking at the raw bill of materials.
Their niche was rapidly eroded by simply running multiple single user PCs at the low end, and networked small Unix systems at the high end - both of which benefitted from higher economies of scale and needed less systems integration work.
Definitely interesting in a "what might have been?" way, though. I suspect that if DR had done a deal with IBM, then we might have ended up going down that sort of path for most of the 80s.