Now that a few major old and new OSs are available for the PC
(e.g., dos, windows 8x, windows xt, linux, Os2, - -) I find myself
morning the choice of having to give up wonderful tools
ported to operating system A, but not to OS B, etc. Arachne is a prime
example. We all know that arachne does not deal with https, with
java, and javascript. We also know the sheer ton-age of bad htmp
markup on web pages keeps increasing, so that almost any browser
needs the bandwidth of DSL or equivalent to load all the frames, and
forms, and images, and and -- and run all the cgi scripts, etc. Because
of this, I find lynx gives me some kind of chance at access to a larger
number of sites, on DOS, than arachne.
Similar developments with other internet staples, such as ESMTP
authorization dialogues for email, clients that send everybody an html
version of any message- even with one word in it- are making it harder
and harder for dos-based programs to deal with the evolving internet.
This got me wondering if it is possible to switch between different
OSs, as quickly and easily as one switches from one program or
task to another, using a windows desktop.
As of now, switching to another OS usually involves a laborious and
relatively time consuming rebooting of the PC (e.g., the average
reboot is probably minutes, where switching to MS whatever takes less
than a second).
The factors preventing fast OS switching that I can immediately
think of is:
a) different file systems and binaries
b) different kernals in memory.
There is not too much that can be done about a. Limited file sharing
and FAT table reading is possible across OS's, I realize.
But I wonder if
some kind of flash ROM could be included in a PC that contained
all the things that had to be in RAM for an OS shell to talk to
the PCs devices? If so, could not one simply exchange OS's by
clearing one OS from ram and doing the equivalent of a reboot from
disk, by reading in another OS from ROM to active RAM? This might
greatly decrease the time needed to go to another OS - perhaps making
it practical to run over to Linux and use netscape for the horrible
website, and then come back to dos for text-based tasks.
Reactions, thoughts, complaints?
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Howard Schwartz
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[EMAIL PROTECTED]
