> The "adults" came in and showed the kids how to make a grown-up operating system
Oh please — it's easy when you have the luxury of starting from scratch with unlimited budget.
DOS-based Windows had to both retain backwards compatibility with DOS applications and all their quirks and coexist with them at the same time.
The amount of hacks necessary to pull that off is an accomplishment unto itself.
Remember you couldn't really play games on NT-based Windows until Windows XP came out and even then DOS games were pretty much out until DOSbox came along.
Guess those "adults" had to stick with Solitaire and Hearts.