I think the thing Robert is referring to is the issue MS created
when they wrote hooks into MSDOS to prevent Lotus 123 from working.
The catchcry was "DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run!".
This was not an extension to the MSDOS operating system, but a deliberate
attempt to prevent a competing application from running in a particular
operating environment.
Also, when Windows 3.0 was released, some extra code was provided in the
winexec code that checked to see what DOS was running on the user's
PC.
DRDOS and (I think) others were unable to run Win 3.0 whereas MSDOS
was able to launch windows successfully.
It was proved that this was deliberate, and the code was not written
to provide any additional functionality, but to actively prevent
a competing product from using the windows platform.
The result was that sales of DRDOS dropped incredibly, even though it was
a better product than MSDOS, and was fully capable
of running windows, but by the time MS removed the malicious code,
the DRDOS product had no market anymore.
DRDOS was subsequently bought up by Novell, and now by Caldera who have
released it to the Internet as a free product, and complete source code for the
DRDOS is available.
The Windows and lotus 123 info was obtained from Chapter 2 (or 3) of
"undocumented DOS", with supporting source code.
Some OpenDOS links:
http://www.caldera.com/dos/
http://www.qnx.com/~glen/deadbeef/1517.html
http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~kkoster/201/toc.html
The point is, MS have a history of it...
rachel
-- Rachel Polanskis Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia grove@zeta.org.au http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/grove.html r.polanskis@nepean.uws.edu.au http://www.nepean.uws.edu.au/ccd/ "Yow! Am I having fun yet?!" - John Howard^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Zippy the Pinhead