[plug] preinstalled OS's was Re: [plug] HP to ship the NX5000 (laptop) with SUSE pre-installed.

[Bret Busby]

On Thu, 5 Aug 2004, Senectus . wrote:

> 
> > 
> > What is "dos tax" ? I know hard drive can be bundled with OEM windows, but
> > that was never forced. Was it?
> > 
> Once apon a time it was not legal for a hard drive manufacturer to
> ship a hard drive without an OS on it.
> Back then the cheapest and best known OS was MSDOS.
> EVERY hard drive in the world was sold with a copy of MSDOS on it and
> a tithe paid to MS.
> 
> 

Could you be specific, as to when this occurred?

I seem to remember that some personal computers came with IBM PC-DOS 
pre-installed, and, some with DR-DOS installed. I also remember 
computers, including Z-80 systems, from Osborne, I think, that came with 
CP/M preinstalled. Oops - they had the DOS on floppies, that had to be 
flopped in and out of the machines, or, left in the machines when turned 
on (the Osbornes with CP/M). But, a person could end up with any one of 
the three DOS's (DR-DOS, PC-DOS, or MS-DOS) preinstalled, on Intel X86 
and x*6 clones (eg, NEC V22) personal computers. And, I believe that the 
Compaq 80386 UNIX servers, did not have MS OS's preinstalled on them. 
Likewise, regarding the "EVERY hard drive in the world was sold with a 
copy of MSDOS on it", I wonder how you work that one, with the HDD for a 
DEC PDP-11, that ran RSTS/E or RSX-11 or UNIX.

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
  Chapter 28 of 
  "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
  A Trilogy In Four Parts",
  written by Douglas Adams, 
  published by Pan Books, 1992 
....................................................