Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DOS.MASTER (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge to Glen Bredon.  Sandstein  23:15, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

DOS.MASTER
AfDs for this article: 
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Non-notable software product. Substantial third-party references are simply not found, so reliable sources can't be used to establish deletion. Previous AFD was a decade ago, closed with shaky reasoning about asserted notability. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikeblas (talk • contribs) 17:35, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. North America1000 17:49, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. North America1000 17:49, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Merge to somewhere, probably to the author Glen Bredon, or maybe Apple DOS or ProDOS. I can't find many sources either, but this was about 10 years before the World Wide Web was common, so coverage would probably be mostly in paper newsletters and magazines, with maybe a bit of coverage in electronic newsletters on possibly-now-lost bulletin board systems.  If someone indexed the text of the paper newsletters and magazines we'd probably have more information.  With the caveat of WP:IDONTKNOWIT, I will say that I didn't know about this program, but I never had a 3.5" floppy or hard drive in the Apple II era.  (For those that don't understand what this program is for: Apple DOS 3.3 was too dumb to deal with anything except 140kB Disk II floppy disks.  After DOS 3.3 came ProDOS, which had support for 3.5" floppies, hard drives, and so on.  DOS.Master apparently hooked into the more-flexible ProDOS block device support, using that to run DOS 3.3 programs on bigger drives by making DOS 3.3 programs think that they had access a whole lot of floppy disks, which is all DOS 3.3 was smart enough to understand.)  As for the few publicly-searchable web sources: The files for DOS.Master are at http://www.apple2.org.za/gswv/a2zine/System/ but it's not covered in the a2zine articles themselves, as far as I know.  There is a brief attempt at independent investigation of DOS Master at http://dreher.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=89 but it turns out not to have gone very far. --Closeapple (talk) 05:58, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 14:30, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep - The ability to continue to be able to execute programs written for a previous OS on its abandonment, is known as backward compatibility. Such is very important & significant, and is what DOS.MASTER offered. In that era (late 1980's), backward compatibility was a real and huge concern in the realm of OSs. I was not personally involved in anything Apple related (I was, and still am, a "child" of Microsoft), so I don't feel confident about me personally evaluating the article's claim of DOS.Master having "experienced widespread success", but if the claim is even just somewhat true, then I have no doubt that DOS.MASTER is fully deserving of having a Wikipedia article. --DexterPointy (talk) 15:51, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Note. Wikipedia's notability guidelines make no mention of backward compatibility. -- Mikeblas (talk) 16:25, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment to Note: Wikipedia's notability guidelines also makes no mention of neither wheels nor tyres, both of which I perceive as being important & significant (though so in scope of vehicles, not OSs). -- DexterPointy (talk) 19:28, 25 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Merge to Glen Bredon per the rationale above. Judging by the sources I can find, it seems more like a topic that belongs in another article, rather than as its own stand-alone thing. It can be split off into a dedicated article if more sources turn up later. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:59, 25 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Merge to Glen Bredon. There might be coverage to establish notability, but I suspect much of it is not available online.  Alas, my own pile of Apple ][ magazines were tossed 15 years ago. -- Whpq (talk) 20:24, 3 March 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.