Rest in Peace, Mr. Ritchie

[Dave]

Poor put upon Jack. He's realized that Gates and IBM have been out to get him personally all these years. It must really suck to be Jack.

[krw]

Define "OS". ROM BASIC was installed on all IBM PCs. If "OS" == Disk, then you're obviously right.

Early PC/DOS *was* MS/DOS. There was a split, later, but up until at least V3, they were identical. The best version was IBM's DOS7.

IBM sold PC/DOS. Some dealers may have sold MS/DOS instead. There were Windows versions before 1.0, but didn't sell well.

Which OS? IIRC, PC/DOS was about $50.

[krw]

Impossibly high. Profit margin is defined as NetIncome/Revenue. It's pretty hard to get that ratio above unity (100%).

Clothing is one that comes to mind. For example a Columbia Sportswear

Could be an overrun, sold at a loss. But it doesn't change the arithmetic.

So, what's $.90/$1?

That's 97%, excluding other costs of the sale.

[krw]

Says the clueless loon.

IKWUABWAI? I guess that is your best argument yet. You clearly don't know what you're talking about.

Clueless loons never know that they're clueless loons. However, they do try to hijack threads. Didn't work, loon.

[FrozenNorth]

C/PM-86, DR-DOS, BeOS many have come and gone. There were many shells before early Windows too, Topview, Desqview, GeOS all come to mind.

[Jack]

Before IBM bestowed the DT/PC OS market on MS, nothing much was going on in the DT/PC market. It was super small, super expensive with not much reason to exist.

My first computer was around 1983, an IBM PC MS DOS 2.0, dual floppies, and a 10 meg HD. I out grew it the first year or so, didn't know it was the OS until I got into UNIX years later. It really became obvious when OS/2 warp made DOS/WIN look like the dog it was.

I think the first (significant) version of windows that (didn't) work was 3.1. I don't think that changed even a little until XP came out, which works marginally if you don't mind occasional meltdowns and periodic registry explosions. XP still is not a patch on the ass of OS/2 WARP. I never used Win Vista ver 7 so can't comment other than retailers were offering XP and free future upgrades because Vista sucked. Hard to imagine it sucked worse than previous versions of Win, but that was the word I got.

DR DOS was around, but it was no different than MS DOS. I don't think any retailers sold it for fear of MS reprisals. There was an excellent shareware command.com replacement called 4DOS that you could buy via BBS's like mine. It didn't take long for MS to dominate, and stagnate, the PC/DT market.

[RicodJour]

That's because you just didn't like to make change. ;)

"How much for the tire?" "$25. "Here ya go." "Oh, three tens...I meant $30."

R

[Leon]

Understood from an investors point of view. Having always worked with GP and net profit with in a company and net profit margins not being a consideration for the employees the GP margin was always the one that came to mind.

Very well could be but a majority of the items in that store are at greatly reduced prices. And since we actually talking about net I am sure that this is not the norm for the company as a whole.

90%.. Sorry!!! Misread everything. I was thinking mark up percentage.

As long as there is a cost involved a GP margin above 99.9% is all but impossible.

[Leon]

OS that which you entered commands that the computer could understand, yes the one on a disk.

Don't doubt that since both were nearly identical.

Really, I thought that IBM was only coming with the MS version.

I really cannot remember for sure but .... DR DOS may be??? I guessing here. I did not use it past trying it out.

[Mike Marlow]

Pure stupidity. You are either a 20-something text adict or you are simply too lazy to type a comprehensive sentence - expecting everyone else to either understand or to look up your "acronyms".

[Robatoy]

e:

Many people don't understand the difference between % margin and % markup. Margin of profit on selling price vs profit mark up from cost price. Margin (ofter called points) : I buy for $3.00 and sell for $ 6.00, make 50% margin. Mark-up : I buy for $ 3.00 and sell for $ 6.00, make 100% markup. ( sell for 9 bucks, I make 200% mark up... and so on.)

[Larry Blanchard]

If I buy an item for $1 and sell it for $2, that's a 100% *markup*. If I sell it for $10 that's a 1000% markup, and if I sell it for $100 that's a

10,000% markup.

Even if my overhead is fifty cents, I'm still doing quite well at a $10.00 price.

This may not be a profit percentage, but it's what most folks would consider a profit.

[Leon]

I had win 3.0 and for me the free 3.1 upgrade was a significant improvement. I never had any thing earlier than 3.0.

I don't think that changed even a little until XP came out, > which works marginally if you don't mind occasional meltdowns and > periodic registry explosions.

GoBack saved my butt on many occasions.

XP still is not a patch on the ass of OS/2 > WARP. I never used Win Vista ver 7 so can't comment other than retailers > were offering XP and free future upgrades because Vista sucked. Hard to > imagine it sucked worse than previous versions of Win, but that was the > word I got.

Every one complains about something. ;) I had the most luck with XP and because it was such a vast improvement over 95 and 98 in being stable many did found it not necessary to change or upgrade. IIRC ME,

2000, and Vista did not have enough persuasion to change many XP users minds. Had Microsoft continued to support XP it might still be very popular. I am using 7 now and it seems as stable as XP but has a lot of short cuts that make using it a bit simpler to use. I don't care for Vista my self but every one that uses it likes it, but...I think every one that I know that uses it did had not used XP extensively. I think since XP it all depends on what you are used to using.

[FrozenNorth]

I used and supported everything from various flavours of DOS and Windows in a corporate environment. XP was by far the best and easiest, over its predecessors. Vista was fine, given the right hardware, MS seriously messed up on its minimum hardware requirements, given the right hardware Vista ws fine, but Win7 is a joy to use.

Win8 looks like it is going to be another bucket load of crap though, at least according to the latest developers release. Had it running in a virtual machine, couldn't get rid of it fast enough.

[m II]

Hey Caputo...f*ck off back to your failed Usenet business.

and stop bottom posting. Get with the modern times

Poor put upon Jack. He's realized that Gates and IBM have been out to get him personally all these years. It must really suck to be Jack.

[RicodJour]

Where's the money in that...err...sense. I meant where's the sense in that? ;)

They need the money. Do you have any idea what a billionaire Buddhist's burial goes for these days?

R

[Robatoy]

Don't worry about TwatNoodle over there, Dave... (Caputo is his imaginary friend...ssshhhhhh)

[Robatoy]

If you include his favourite ride (GulfstreamG650).. it get very pricy.

[Noons]

Bingo.

[krw]

ROM BASIC qualified that far.

Well, ROM BASIC wasn't on a disk. ;-)

There were a few commands, and later shells that differed. Just enough to differentiate the two. OTOH, there was a pretty big difference between MS/DOS

6.x and PC/DOS 7.x.

PC/DOS was IBM's brand for DOS. After 3x (IIRC) they were rather different things.