>>>>>I supposed this person never took an Operating Systems course. Unix had a superior file system to FAT in 1973!<<
And UNIX ran on an IBM PC? It seems to me i know a bit about OSes, and you just posted a non sequitur.<<<
Andy, my apologies, but this repeated claim is absurd. I have worked on many of the OS's since the CDC 1700, the Burroughs 305, and the IBM 360. This included many minicomputers of the 70's and systems like the Apple II, CPM, and lots of Unix boxes as well. Many of these manufacturers produced earlier, better file systems. Even MSFT has produced a vastly superior file system, specifically the one in NT.
There was nothing about FAT that was/is attractive or innovative. The OS 360 system was better in 1966.
OK, FAT is better than paper tape. It's better than card decks. It's better than the C64 disk format. If that's your point, it's weak.
You rejected the argument that the Unix file system of many years ago was superior, on the grounds that it wasn't a PC file format.
So let's see: FAT was innovative because it was the first PC file system, and no other, older, better file systems need apply? Therefore FAT must be best because it is the only one that fits your circular criteria. (Apparently, the most innovative file system of 1981 that was the first file system that ran on PCs.) Hmmm.
The programmers that design these things are allowed to learn from previous systems you know. But even if FAT had come up to the standards of the time in file systems, which it didn't, that would have been standard engineering, not innovation. Even if the folks at Microsoft had developed it rather than Seattle computer (I think that was the name of the developers of DOS.) Wasn't your original point that MSFT had been innovative, specifically in creating the FAT system? If MSFT created this later and it wasn't part of the original DOS then I stand corrected.
But innovative means you break new ground, not that you indulge in clumsy kludges like FAT. FAT has been wasting a large percentage of the world's disk storage since the beginning. It's been like a 10% tax on most of the disk drives sold since 1983. How many billions of dollars would that be? Well, a boon to the disk drive manufacturers, maybe? No, a tax on them too.
Have a nice day,
Chaz |
