DOS was (is) a loose collection of small (optional) utilities, a tiny bootloader (IO.SYS) and a limited command interpreter -- command.com and the bootloader was all that was strictly necessary: hardly a "heart". Memory management was lousy (and bizarre) and usually since I was using PharLap memory management it was largely redundant anyhow. You could use any number of thrid party memory managers or even roll your own. Disk caching/buffering was just awful and it wasn't until version 5 that it started shaping up. V5 was actually a very good version, after years of rewrites and improvement.Microsoft bought QDOS in good faith and are therefore not in the frame for anything. For once in my life I'd defend them here. I don't even know why Gates's name is even being connected to this story.
And yes, Gary Kidall was a genius. But in this one instance, MS are free of any wrongdoing in my view.
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