Hello Guys, Besides we all think that DOS is some kind of a toy , it's a really powerfull Operation System(OS). A war horse ! So powerfull that was created to take full ownership of the hardware and the 16-bits of the 8086 processor. This is know as "real mode" in X86 processor architecture terms. Real mode is so much selfish that don't let anything else control the hardware and we didn't need more than that in those days at all. Things moved one and we started to think that we needed to do more than 1 thing simultaneously and a "multi-task" OS started to be needed, besides this is kind of bullshit because our brain can only do one thing at a time (at least the male ones! as my wife says) and the "protected mode" was created, so a multi-task (or something resembling that) could be done. But even multi-task was not easy to implement and we needed more power so 32-bits processors were needed and Intel engineers realized that DOS programs would still be needed for quite some time. So they created a Virtual 8086 mode to the OS's cheat 16-bits programs to think they had total control of the hardware, when they were in fact creating 8086 processors emulated by hardware. That's how Windows 32 bits works till today. 64-bits processors introduced the long mode (too much bits "enh" ?), besides they could run all previous modes if you wish. But again, not as simple as push a button. So Microsoft decided that it was too complex to implement all modes again and said that enough is enough of 16-bits and removed this mode from its 64-bits versions. This was a business decision, not technical. In fact there are 2 16-bits programs that run on Windows 64 bits , 2 installers but only these 2 are allowed, which proves that it is technically possible. The 32-bits versions continues to run fine V8086 mode. That's why we need virtual machines in 64-bits Windows and that's why they always will be slower that the real mode running at bare metal. It's like put one box inside another and complaing that you cannot fill the same volume. It will work, but you gonna loose something and in this case we loose speed. If you have a 64-bit OS because you have a machine with more than 4GB of Ram and need speed to run DOS programs,DP and Simcity for example the solution maybe a dual boot system. It's a pain in the neck to keep reseting and so one but it's a viable solution. If speed in DOS is not a problem , pick any virtual machine. Vdos is a DosBox tweak made by Jos Schaars that runs pretty fine, it's free and Jos does a great job tweaking it for DP and some DOS programs. There is a Dosbox for Linux and DP runs fine there too but keep in mind that it's not same as a real hardware. So, to resume we have these options :

1- Run a Windows 32 bit version and nothing else needed till MS stops to ship 32 bit versions of Windows (7,8 and 10 all have 32 bit versions, maybe the last ones meanwhile still more time to run DP ! ). 2- Run a virtual machine inside a 64-bit Windows. Vdos is preferred and recommended but you can also use VMware , Virtualbox, Dosbox, etc... with slow performance but with a working environment. 3- Dual boot Windows 64-bit and DOS. Anytime you need to run DP you will need to reset your computer which may make you experience boring but works. Before you ask , DOS can run on almost anything nowadays from computers to laundry machines ! and will run fine in a 64-bit computer if you let him alone in his partition.

Rgds...


On 24-07-2015 19:00, Jacques Gaijin wrote:
Hi All,

With great interest I have been following this post. Reason is I programmed an extremely complicated report in DP-2.2, with a string of subreports, even deeper subreports and generating new data entries to multiple panels. In all, the report consists of around 690 lines in the .STE file! This all worked fine on any Intel 386 processor wirh a clock speed less than 50Mhz. It would take at least 6 hours to run on a database with over 28.000 records to be addressed. After release of DataPerfect v.2.3, it would generally crash or hang during the report, and always crashes running any Windows version later than WfW-311, so I am still running it (5x a year) on a machine I kept with an AMD 386-40 processor, only for that purpose.

Due to the complexity and time consumption, I even never even thought of upgrading Dataperfect to any version later than v.2.2! Due to the issues mentioned in this post, and if time permits..., I would consider giving VDOS a try. But I am still hesitant about the outcome. Has anyone tried out DataPerfect running in a LINUX emulator? Recently I installed (dual boot) a Lubuntu version on a machine, so as to get rid of all Microsoft issues altogether.

There seem to be two MS-DOS emulators for LINUX, so if anyone has some experience with these, as compared to vDOS, it would be very helpful.

Keep DataPerfect running forever!

Jacques Gaijin

On 25-Jul-15 04:48, Tim Rude wrote:
After all this discussion, I decided to take another look at DP report execution times.

First I decided to see if maybe I was running an old version of VDos. I've been running version 2014.04.06. Looking on the site I see there have been three releases since then, and the release notes report that some speed optimizations were made in VDos.

Specifically:
Version 2014.07.18: The emulated CPU gets more time to execute, so vDos will run faster. Version 2014.10.19: Simplified and stripped down the video/VGA drawing routines, they are also a bit faster now. Version 2014.10.19: Further optimization of CPU memory access functions, vDos is in overall a 25% faster (a 10% due to compiling for speed).

So I installed the latest version (2015.04.10) to see how it compares with the earlier version I was running. I was hoping for some real improvements. But I found that the reports actually take *longer* to run under the new version of VDos than they did under the old version. I was totally not expecting that!

For example, one report which uses two-level reports and subreports to generate an order summary consistently took about 52 seconds to run under the old version of VDos. Under the new version of VDos it consistently takes about 57 seconds. 5 seconds longer!

To rule out any affects of disk-caching or memory-caching, I ran each report multiple times back-to-back and I came up with the same times with each run.

Then, to compare the run times outside of VDos, I fired up MS Virtual PC running WinXP and opened up the exact same database. Imagine my surprise when the same report consistently took 73 seconds to run!

Ok, next test was to run it in Windows 7's XPMode (using the same WinXP virtual machine) that I tried above. This time it consistently took about 70 seconds. Interesting that XPMode runs it faster than actually opening XP in VPC, but still way too slow.

So props to VDos for at least trouncing the VPC times.

Then I rebooted from a CD with a live version of XP on it. Ran the exact same database and the same report. It took 5 seconds to run. No that's not a typo. FIVE seconds. That's more than 10 times faster than under VDos and almost 15 times faster than under VPC/XP!

I knew I remembered that my reports used to be much faster but I had forgotten just how much faster they were. :(

Makes you wonder sometimes if it's really progress...

Tim Rude

On 7/23/2015 9:07 AM, Don Friedman wrote:
Malkie - yes, I have VDos working on Win8 on my notebook, works fine. The "slow" problem carries to all the platforms I use it on, the developer isn't quite sure what is causing it but recognizes that it is there. Since it's not an issue across the board in general usage and doesn't seem to impact the more frequent uses of the product, has no particular reason to pursue it.

Don

*Don Friedman
ProfessionalRecords.Com LLC
PRS Data Systems
*
*205 S Main Street
Pittsburgh, PA   15215
412-784-1600 - 1-800-PRS-FILE
412-784-1615 Fax*

On Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 8:30 PM, barmag <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

    Likewise, I haven't experience VDos working slow on Win7-64bit.

    What about Windows 8? Would DP  work at least like it does on
    Win7-64bit using
    VDos?

    Malkie

    > Thanks Tim and Don.
    >
    > My experience difference then is that I have not run any large
    reports in a long time, and I don't
    > recall that I've even exported and reloaded a large dataset
    since using vDos.
    >
    > Don
    >
    > On 23/07/2015 12:56 AM, Don Friedman wrote:
    >     Dan - all that is true. However, in my experience there
    are other functions that are terribly
    >     slow, so slow in fact that I keep other older machines
    around to run those routines. Of
    >     course, I'm talking about larger databases. Imports and
    the running of reports come to
    >     mind. I once measured the same report running under VDos
    and straight from DOS
    >     (mounted on a Vista machine) - my DOS report ran in about
    20 minutes, under VDos it
    >     took almost two hours. I gave up trying to import large
    datasets under VDos for the same
    >     reason.
    >     Otherwise, I really enjoy having VDos available to me and
    use it for functions that don't
    >     require speed - report writing, building panels, inquiries
    of a lookup nature and the like. It
    >     is solid as a rock as far as I can tell. Then again, I
    lead a relatively uncomplicated data life
    >     and never print from DP.
    >
    > Don Don Friedman
    > ProfessionalRecords.Com LLC
    > PRS Data Systems
    > 205 S Main Street
    > Pittsburgh, PAÂ Â  15215
    > 412-784-1600 <tel:412-784-1600> - 1-800-PRS-FILE
    > 412-784-1615 <tel:412-784-1615> Fax
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > On Wed, Jul 22, 2015 at 9:52 PM, Don Codling
    <[email protected]> wrote:
    >     I don't understand why you say vDos slows down DP, Tim. DP
    is greased lightning for me
    >     running vDos on Win 7 - 64 bit. I don't think I've run any
    really large reports since starting
    >     to work DP on vDos, but it loads virtually instantly -
    less than a second, and switches from
    >     one to another database even faster, if possible, opens
    pages faster than I can time it ...
    >
    >     Don Codling
    >
    >     On 22/07/2015 6:48 PM, Tim Rude wrote:
    >     DP (and any other 16-bit DOS app) will not run natively
    under Win-7 64-bit. The
    >     32-bit OS can run 16-bit apps.
    >
    >     To run under 64-bit Windows you have to use a DOS emulator
    like VDOS. Or you
    >     can run a virtual machine (using Virtual PC, VirtualBox,
    etc.) with a compatible
    >     OS installed and run DP inside it. VDOS is simplest but
    does slow DP down a bit.
    >
    >     On 7/22/2015 10:30 AM, Jens Thorvald Høeg wrote:
    >     Dear ALL
    >     There was just a related question. Sorry to ask what has
    already been
    >     discussed I believe but
    >
    >     1) Can you run Dataperfect under WIN-7 64 bit (it runs
    under 32 bit of
    >     course, I do that)
    >
    >     2) If so, what do you have to do?
    >
    >     Best regards
    >
    >     Jens using Dataperfect since 1989!
    >
    >
    >     Jens T Høeg, dr,scient, ph.d.
    >     Always remember Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and
    >     Auschwitsch
    >     Marine Biology Section - Department of Biology
    >     University of Copenhagen
    >     Universitetsparken 4 - DK-2100
    >     Copenhagen DENMARK
    > +45 28751247 <tel:%2B45%2028751247> [email protected]
    <mailto:[email protected]>
    >
    >
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