terminology and history (was Re: Re updating BIOS)

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Sun, 16 Feb 2020 00:56:11 -0600, Scott Bennett wrote:
>Ottavio Caruso <ottavio2006-usenet2012 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 12 Feb 2020 at 07:24, Scott Bennett <bennett at sdf.org> wrote:
>>  
>> >
>> >      On Sun, 9 Feb 2020 08:41:11 +0000 Steve O'Hara-Smith
>> > <steve at sohara.org> wrote:
>> >  
>> > >On Sun, 09 Feb 2020 02:09:59 -0600
>> > >Scott Bennett <bennett at sdf.org> wrote:
>> > >  
>> > >>      The first part of the above, mispunctuated pair of
>> > >> sentences is correct, but the latter part is not.  FreeDOS,
>> > >> like PC-DOS and MSDOS before it, is/was not an operating
>> > >> system, but rather a more primitive creature known as a monitor
>> > >> system.  
>> > >
>> > >       The DOS part of those names is an abbreviation of 'Disc
>> > > Operating
>> > >System' - clearly at the time they were considered operating
>> > >systems even  
>> >
>> >      They may have been considered that by amateurs from the ham
>> > radio community  
>>
>> Stopped reading here.
>>
>> The "amateurs from the ham radio community" are (and at least were
>> back in the 70s) much more skilled than you paint them. The first
>> form  
>
>     Really?  That was not my experience in the United States.  Here
> there 
>appeared to be very little overlap between computer programmers and
>ham radio operators.  When CPU chips with word lengths greater than
>four bits appeared in '75 or '76, both communities began to take
>interest.  Once kits and already built small computers were available
>on the market, quite a few members of the ham community began learning
>how to program, but it was several more years before a large
>percentage knew much about programming.  By the same token, it was
>quite a while before many programmers got into building hardware.  I
>suspect that the electrical engineering community may have had much
>more overlap with hams and with programmers, but as the mostly
>distinct groups at that time.  By the early 1980s the ham community
>did include many people with susbstantial programming knowledge.

Really?

I can't comment on this from my own experiences, but a Linux pen pal
from Virginia between 80 and 90 years old, AFAIK not a ham enthusiast,
but an audio and video engineer (as I was myself) started already
when transistors didn't exist, probably might proof you wrong.

I'm a native 6005/6010 Assembly programmer from the 80th, from Germany
and never had to do something related to ham Radio, but a friend of
mine, in my age, was radio operator for the Bundeswehr that time.

Back to the original topic, the time when *DOS existed (>= 1981), we
already had worldwide very skilled people who actually know how to use a
soldering station and how to program Assembly and even higher languages.

Consider the term "operating system" with common sense and historical
reality.