Re: DOS, was Re: Ada Tutor Web Site Shutting Down

[Rugxulo <rugxulo@gmail.com>]

Hi,

(I know this isn't directly Ada-related anymore, but please indulge
me, I won't take this too much further. Hey, it's better than spam or
flames, right?)

On May 13, 2:25 am, Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauh...@futureapps.de>
wrote:
> On 5/13/11 12:40 AM, Adam Beneschan wrote:
>
> > On May 12, 3:17 pm, Georg Bauhaus<rm.dash-bauh...@futureapps.de>
> > wrote:
>
> >> For one thing, DOS effectively ruled out a number of design
> >> patterns:  you need something on top of DOS in order to
> >> operate(!) these patterns.  Such as programmable auxiliary
> >> tasks doing background work.
>
> > I may respond to other parts of the post, but... you do remember that
> > this was originally for an 8088 processor, right?  Not a Pentium. 
> > You can't really judge what should have happened in 1980 based on the
> > technology we have available in 2011.

Correct, please read these below for more technical info:

http://dosmandrivel.blogspot.com/
http://www.patersontech.com/dos/

BTW, Wirth (et al.) ported Modula-2 to the IBM PC way back in 1983-4
via M2M-PC. This was multi-pass and thus ran in 64 kb of RAM. Even his
later ('80s) Oberon System was ridiculously low on RAM, which is
anathema to todays "gigs of RAM" mentality. His "Plea for Lean
Software" (1995) obviously fell on deaf ears. I've never heard him
comment on AMD64 and the plethora of gigs we all have now. Now, don't
get me wrong, it's impossible to complain about *having* that much
RAM, only that a). we don't need it, and b). software still is never
satisfied, always eating more and more. Heh, it's funny to think that
even the XBox 360 or iPad 2 only have 512 MB of RAM. (What does latest
iPod have, 256 MB? I think so, but I forget.) Eventually everything
will have to have 20 GB or "it sucks"!

Well, my point is this: if people survived 20-30 years ago with much,
much less, why can't we (today)??? I don't think DOS is perfect, but I
do think its software should be preserved, and compatibility to
actually run it (or other OS binaries) would be nice, esp. without
needing literally billions of bytes of RAM.

EDIT: This is all just way off-topic, sorry! But hey, I noticed
yesterday that somebody ported DOSBox (portable C/C++ x86 emulator,
SDL) to pure Java, and it runs (DOS original) Doom (1993, 386 pmode,
Watcom + DOS/4GW ... used self-modifying code, he says, ick) full-
speed!   http://jdosbox.sourceforge.net/

> Extending the set of examples of how people rolled their own,
> -  Minix is a more elaborate OS for the IBM PC (with Intel 8088),
> -  Coherent OS is, too.

Did they exist in 1982?? I don't think Minix did, and also Minix was
not free either (though admittedly cheaper than some of the other
choices). Besides, last I checked, Minix 2.0.2 was the last to truly
run on 8086, and that release is (I think) circa 1998. In other words,
if it wasn't available at the same time, it doesn't compare.

> If I understand correctly, then a TI MSP430 is not much
> different in some respects.  You get a number of operating systems
> for it, including µC/OS-II which can also run on a Zilog Z80.
>
> I'm mentioning these because, with some effort, you get
> software whose qualities differ from DOS's.

There was also OS/2, which was the intended successor of DOS and
Windows. MS and IBM collaborated during 1987 to 1991 on the 1.x series
(16-bit pmode, 286). Eventually it didn't work out, esp. since Win 3.0
was a big success and clashed with the IBM mentality. But even Win 3.x
eventually became 386 only, which led the way to Win9x (which still
ran atop DOS). Only with Win XP (2001) did MS really drop DOS
completely for home users (though emulation still existed due to 386's
V86 mode). But MS even now calls XP "old and deprecated"!! And AMD64
is the borg to assimilate everything else (sigh, no V86 mode, but VT-X
helps).

It's not that there is no progress, just it has good and bad qualities
and takes a long time. It's just one of my pet peeves that everything
old is automatically "good for nothing". For some reason, only the
latest/greatest is approved ... until it becomes old hat, then it's
tossed aside like garbage, even when it works!