[Gllug] MS grumbles (was: take a look at my photos on Facebook)

[Christopher Currie]

On  Fri, 6 Nov 2009 12:33:54 +0000 Martyn Drake <martyn at drake.org.uk> wrote
> Subject: Re: [Gllug] MS grumbles (was: take a lookat my photos on
>         Facebook)

> Back then, for PCs, security was the responsibility of the application  
> itself and not the operating system.  If you had to protect any data,  
> the vendor responsible for the software had to DIY and not rely on the  
> underlying operating system (i.e. MS-DOS) to do it.  Anything that  
> protected the OS was through third party vendors (although I am having  
> trouble thinking of anything that sat on top of DOS and "protected" it).

Not so. IBM mainframe OSs had 7 levels of user passwords and 7 levels of 
access passwords. Tandy/Radio Shack, god bless 'em, ported all this to the 8-
bit TRS-80. Although their DOSs were frankly crap, the independent companies 
that produced improved versions (Newdos, LDOS, Multidos, etc) retained that 
feature.

OK, experienced nerds could get round it, but not so the office user or the 
casual thief. The feature was quite regularly used in business software. I can 
remember Grafton Computers in WC1 using an old Model 1 TRS-80 with accounting 
and invoicing software on it for their work years after everything they were 
selling was IBM-compatible PCs. It worked, and it was more secure than 
anything that ran on the PCs.

Bilge himself had written software integrated with the original Tandy DOS, so 
must have known about this. His decision not to include passwords on MS-DOS, 
at least two years later, must have been deliberate. It was a massive step 
backwards. Typical M$.

It's true that CP/M did not provide passwords. it was very crummy compared 
with the 'turnkey' Tandy DOSs.

Christopher
-- 
Experience the poWer of Resistentialism

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