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there's a question you need to answer so
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imagine it's 1992 and rather than
installing a fresh copy of
microsoft dos on your computer like a
good little person
you instead opted for a rival operating
system
all seemed dandy until you went to
install
windows 3.1 and then you received
this horrific error message
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hello there i'm nostalgia nerd and today
we're looking at
the art code
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if you watched my last video you may get
some deja vu because we're back
on the subject of digital research dos
what a time to be alive digital research
once the industry leader in operating
systems had by 1990
been on the back foot for about 10 years
ever since microsoft gazumped them by
licensing 86 dos
and making a deal with ibm to have it
the cheapest
choice with their ibm personal computer
they had been trying to claw back
steadily but without too much success
you might think then that microsoft
would no longer see them
as a threat wrong drdos were still small
fry
but from 1990 to 91 their sales revenue
doubled from 15 million dollars
to 30 million and by the first quarter
of 1992
they were set to double that yet again
the main driver for these sales were
tech savvy pc vendors
and computer magazine journalists
switching to what they deemed
a more favorable experience
to overcome microsoft digital research
had been doing the only thing they could
make a better product dr dos 5 released
in may 1990 was
just that it was the first dos which
allowed you to load drivers into both
high
and extended memory saving vital
conventional ram
it also had a more pleasant command set
and
generally better utilities its success
meant that
novell would purchase digital research
with an agreement
on the 17th of july 1991 worth 80
million dollars
their plan was to heavily gear the rdos
up for networking
posing an even more serious problem for
microsoft
dr.6 released in september 91
built upon these foundations it included
the task
max switching api for a pseudo
multitasking environment
a visual directory manager and even
superstores on the fly disk compression
something microsoft hadn't even
considered at this point
all these factors meant that microsoft
were feeling some serious strain
their initial response was to try and
purchase novell
but to no avail in fact novell instead
made agreements with ibm
to ship and promote dr dos with their
systems
rather than microsoft dos microsoft's
follow-up was therefore to mount a
somewhat more sinister plan
based around windows after all windows
was
the future their future and so in the
run-up to releasing windows
3.1 various meetings were set up and
emails
exchanged
on the exact day that novell purchased
digital research
jim alchin who was then in charge of
microsoft's
unreleased cairo operating system sent
out an email
voicing concerns with novell and ibm's
partnership
the email mentioned speaking to novell
about their plans and getting serious
with their in-house networking efforts
including
getting wimball which was code name for
windows with work groups
into windows 3.1 as soon as possible
but it's point g which is of most
interests
we consider changing our apps to not run
unless the os
is our os this clearly sparked the
imagination of many
employees within microsoft some were
less than happy
but some were fully behind it shortly
after brad silverberg would send an
email back to jim concurring his
concerns
with dr dos after ibm announced his
support for drdos at comdex
my best hunch is that they will offer dr
dos
as the preferred solution drdos has
problems running windows today
and i assume we'll have more problems in
the future
but the thing is dr dos didn't really
have any issues running windows at all
that last statement seemed to be making
a cloaked point
more than anything else jim ulchin would
respond
you should make sure it has problems in
the future
smiley face as the autumn weather swept
in more members of microsoft became
convinced of this direction
and an email was sent from microsoft's
head of development
david cole we should surely crash the
system
the approach we will take is to detect
dr.6
and refuse to load the error message
should be something like
invalid device driver interface maybe
there are several very sophisticated
checks
so competitors get put on a treadmill
aaron r
has some pretty wild ideas after three
or so
beers earl h has some too but less
people know about exactly
what gets done the better this seemed to
suggest
that if a user happened to be running dr
dos an error message
should appear to stop the software from
operating
over the next two months somewhat thanks
to those in disagreement in microsoft
the plan changed to make the error
simply a visual one
a fabrication but did nothing more than
appear
and then disappear microsoft's vice
president sent out an email advising
the assigned developers that the code
detecting drdos
better be perfect otherwise you could be
in a heap of trouble
the aforementioned aaron reynolds set to
work implementing it and as requested
it was cleverly hidden and thoroughly
encrypted
vistiardos bomb was included in the
christmas
beta version of windows 3.1
here then was a gui designed to
completely elevate itself from what had
gone before
true type fonts were added 386 enhanced
mode was added
up to four gigabytes of memory could be
utilized file manager was overhauled
icons could be dragged and dropped for
the first time
and importantly stability was far
superior to that of windows
3. of course that is unless you were
running drdos just like those pc vendors
journalists and prominent pc advisors
who thought that dr dos was the way
forward
until they loaded their beta copies of
windows 3.1
and received an error message that
microsoft dos users
just weren't getting did dr dos have
some serious problems
running windows of course it didn't dr
dos was perfectly compatible with
windows
3.1 and the stability was as good under
dr dos as it was
under ms-dos the message would appear
and then vanish
but the misinformation spread through
the tech industry regardless
as you might expect digital research and
novell were completely denied access
to beta copies of windows 3.1 but were
simply able to circumnavigate the issue
by working with drdos users who were
windows 3.1 beta testers through these
means they quickly rolled out what they
called a windows 3.1 compatible business
update
which bypassed the issue and prevented
the error from
displaying but this wasn't the days of
on-demand internet access and updates
weren't simply pushed out on the fly
users could download the update from the
dr forum on compuserve
if they had access and indeed wanted to
but the damage was done all this rollout
seemingly achieved was
to compound the fact that it was a
digital research
problem not a microsoft one in february
1992
senior vice president brad silverberg
sent out an email to the highest ranks
of microsoft
confirming the strategy what the guy is
supposed to do is feel uncomfortable
and when he has bugs suspects the
problem is drdos
and then go out to buy ms-dos or decide
not to take the risk for the other
machines
he has to buy in the office and indeed
it was working
by the fourth quarter of 1992 many
manufacturers
had erred on the side of caution and
decided to bundle ms-dos
sales of drdos had dropped from 15
million
to only 1.4 million dollars users were
switching back
to microsoft or simply waiting for the
newly announced
ms-6 due in the first quarter of 1993
disk compression included now of course
some people got wise to this situation
pretty quick and in fact by april 1992
people outside of microsoft were
starting to document the code
and its workings jeff chapel was one of
those people
and if you visit his website at
jeffchapel.com he documents the
discovery process in some detail
in april 1992 jeff was emailing back and
forth with
andrew shulman regarding some new
updates included with windows 3.1
namely the highmem.sys driver which
replaces the current dos version on
installation
and allows programs to store data in
extended memory
a feature which diados 5 had if you
remember
this information was for their
respective books undocumented windows by
andrew
and dos internals by jeff
on the cold morning of the 17th of april
jeff fired off an email regarding a
large amount
of really stupid code lots wasted some
encrypted with exor
in heim 3.03 by the evening
he had written a procedure to activate
this obfuscated code
following this on the 8th of june 92
jeff would publish a message
on the cix conferencing system this time
regarding the windows
3.1 executable itself win.com
it details how the code checks for
readings on various input devices
and that if they all return values that
agree with a standard ms-dos
install then no error is activated
however some non-microsoft versions of
dos including dr
would return different values thereby
activating the error
jeff wright's how the code is littered
with red herrings
long and convoluted operations whose
results
are discarded and how there is extra
encryption in place
seemingly designed entirely to obscure
this part of the code
the only non-encrypted part being the
word hard
art being the signature microsoft
developer aaron reynolds used to sign
off his code
it's a bit like a serial killer leaving
his name in blood at the crime scene
jeff also notes that the win.com he was
inspecting would execute but not
actually act upon the code and that's
because the code in the actual retail
version that he had
was deactivated of course by the time
they went to retail microsoft was
satisfied
with the damage they'd already done with
the beta version and so tried to cover
their tracks and forget about the whole
thing
but significantly by leaving the code in
if microsoft felt threatened
it could be reactivated at any time by
any update they wish to distribute
writing in the dr dobbs journal andrew
shulman would expand on this
investigation and
jeff's work and define a crucial part of
the art test
which first checks whether a network
redirector is running
and if so ben checks the dos default
uppercase map
is located in the dos data segment if
it's not running it checks
that the pointer to the first simulated
file control block
has a zero offset the crucial part here
is that all versions of ms-dos
pass this test every time whereas
no version of drdos does simply due
to the way it's written this code was
built into other executables
such as the windows setup program the
disk caching utility
smart drive and even msd microsoft
diagnostics all packaged with windows
beta build 6-1
and the pre-release build 3.1.068 rolled
out in january 1992.
all the errors are pretty similar and
vague but with different error numbers
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now about that question i mentioned
earlier
according to perhaps urban legends how
much memory did bill gates claim
ought to be enough for anybody answer
that and you could win your dream pc
come to think of it i need a new editing
pc
enter at fasthosts.co.uk for all the
details
the link is below
so microsoft had done it they had won
the battle using perhaps sneaky
and weasely tactics but maybe they
hadn't quite won the war
in 1995 several former employees of
novell set up
caldera incorporated the objective of
this company was to create
network utilities with a focus on the
linux operating system
but with a desire to have a dos
operating system bundled with their open
linux distribution
they would acquire novel dos and digital
research
on the 23rd of july 1996. this deal
consisted of a direct payment of
hundred thousand dollars as well as a
percentage of drdos royalties
but on the same day of acquisition
having acquired the rights
caldera would launch an anti-trust
lawsuit against microsoft
this was not just in relation to their
art code but also that microsoft had
combined ms dell 7
with windows 4 which ultimately was
windows 95
to prevent drdos substituting for ms-dos
caldera argued that to create this
illusion microsoft simply hid
ms.7 behind the screen of blue sky
and white clouds displayed during the
now familiar windows 95 startup process
and went even further to demonstrate
that dr dos could be substituted
for ms-dos using a tool they developed
called winglu
even though microsoft claimed that
windows 95 was its own standalone
operating system
caldera exposed the plethora of calls
that were going on behind the scenes
between
dos 7 and what was effectively windows
4.
and i mean really anyone who used
windows 95
should be aware of how important dos
still was in the process and how much
windows 95
actually got in the way of running
anything particularly resource intensive
of course microsoft would dispute all of
this but it was perhaps microsoft's own
internal
communication that was most damning in
fact as far back as 1992
microsoft were talking about completely
eliminating
their rival dos problem in june 1992
brad silverberg had distributed the
chicago strategy
document novell is after the desktop
this is perhaps our biggest threat we
must respond in a strong way
by making chicago a complete windows
operating system from boot up
to shutdown there will be no place or
need
on a chicago machine for dr dos or any
dos
chicago of course being the code name
for windows 95
it was those same internal
communications which bolstered caldera's
claims around the art code and their
claims of microsoft's
illegal tying monopolization exclusive
dealing
and tortious interference the original
case had been built
on jeff and andrew's analysis of the
camouflage code
but it was these emails exposed through
a court request
which really put the nails in
microsoft's copying
the case rattled on until the 7th of
january 2000
with a trial penned in for the 1st of
february however with microsoft also
involved in other anti-trust legal cases
such as netscape they decided to settle
with caldera
costing some 280 million
dollars brian sparks ceo of caldera
commented
we are pleased with the result of this
lawsuit we now look forward to vigorous
competition in the marketplace
with our linux products and strategies
both from caldera systems inc
and lineo inc shortly after caldera
would spin out into various other
companies but would ultimately fizzle
out
the dr dos assets fell to the canopy
group and were acquired by device logics
who shortly after incorporated as dr dos
inc
but like so many cases involving
microsoft the giant would rattle on
and the subsequent companies around it
would vanish
it's a sad end really but hey many of us
are still here
using windows 10 and that's just the way
the cookie crumbles
as for me well i'm about to install dr
dos on some old computers
looks like i've got some catching up to
do thanks for watching
have a great evening
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you