BitWrangler wrote on 2023-03-25, 04:01:
Of course it is, draws on all the same interface conventions as it's predecessors like Visi On and Gem
Actually, one of the reasons why Windows beaten the ***p on GEM was that, for some reason, Digital Research decided to no port their MP/M-86 multitask kernel to PC so GEM could provide actual program multitasking. So, even when GEM looked better (at least than Win1x and 2x) and had stuff like vector fonts, better graphics management, it actually provided an API for graphics applications etc... It couldn't support more than one program at time. Also you couldn't run DOS in a Box ofc.
This is actually different of GEM in the M68k, where actually Atari provided a multitask OS kernel in the form of TOS. There you can see the true capabilities of GEM which never made to PC. Later Novell tried fix that by extending TaskMax OS module to provide multitask services to GEM, but with Win95 coming, was already too late for them.
TrashPanda wrote on 2023-03-25, 09:07:
Are you one of these heathens that considers X-windows, KDE, GNOME etc to also be an OS? if not that what exactly is the difference here because Windows 3.1/9x are no different in their behavior of requiring a core OS to function.
Problem here is you aren't separating the components. What you call XWindows here is just a small part of KRNL386 and GDI. This doesn't involve the rest of the components at all. Although KRNL286 and 386 in Win1, 2, 3 and 4 is a DPMI client program, I give you that.
What you call KDE or GNOME in Windows lies in the USER module and part of GDI module.
The "OS Core" as you call it, is in the VMM module, or DOSX for Standard Mode. It has its own memory management, and taps & controls the CPU tables. Provides program protection and manages between drivers, hardware and the DOS VM, which you use when you don't have Disk and VGA drivers mostly.
DOSX "OS services" are simpler and smaller than its VMM countepart, and doesn't support many of the features its big brother do, as preemptive multitasking (in Win3 only for drivers, extended to windows programs and dos boxes in Win95).
Actually there is a little experiment, where, if you could program GRUB to provide the least of XMS and Disk services compatible with what Win9x expects at boot time, you actually could boot Win9x directly from GRUB bypassing DOS, as long as you provided VxD drivers for Disk and VGA. Sure you would lost Dos Box support and DOS compatibility failsafe falldown, but the OS would run Win32 applications with multitasking just fine. This was used by Novell in their lawsuit against Win95 and DOS ties.