Hi again, :-) On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 7:43 PM, Michael B. Brutman <mbbrut...@brutman.com> wrote: > > Just my opinion, but here it is ...
Everyone's got one ... :-)) > Trying to do a new OS that resembles DOS but has modern features is not > feasible and not going to happen. 1987 called, it wants its OS/2 back. (Oh yeah, you worked for IBM, heh, you knew this.) "A better DOS than DOS and a better Windows than Windows". :-) > The biggest problem is DOS > compatibility - as soon as you start messing with the memory management, > APIs or fixing the "bugs" then existing DOS software will break. V86 solved that, more or less. Sure, you can't "change" too much, but there's no reason you can't add to it (like DOS extenders did). > You can have a DOS-like operating system that supports INT 21 calls, direct > access to hardware, and some other attributes, but if you can't load DOS > device drivers, TSRs, or take advantage of weird DOS specific features > then it really isn't DOS anymore. Hello, Win 3.0 (DPMI) and Win95! Those still ran plenty of DOS titles and had multitasking (and in the latter case LFNs too). Sure, some drivers don't work in those, but a lot did. A lot of us would be thrilled if FreeDOS had multitasking, LFNs, networking, etc. built in. > DOS is so intertwined with the early PC hardware that it is nearly > impossible to modernize it. It survived from 8088 (1979-1981) to 586 (1993-4), esp. changing with EMM386 / VCPI 1.0 (386) and DPMI 0.90 (286, 386, 486). Novell DOS 7 (and DR-DOS 7) had no problem running Win 3.x as well as DOS-only multitasking (though with lots of hardcoded DR-EMM386 driver crud). > DOS also tried to remain backwardly > compatible to a fault, hence the support for FCBs even though file > handle based I/O should have replaced it back in the mid 80s. File handles did replace FCBs. I've heard of very few apps that totally *need* FCBs and don't know of any off-hand (though you probably do). I think even MS-DOS 4 was hated because it (temporarily) removed such support (but was later added back!). Seriously, I would be surprised if any of the stuff I run uses FCBs. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but the point is made: DOS 2.0 API rocked. ;-) > It's a kludge on top of a kludge, and that's what makes it DOS. Fixing the > kludges makes it something else. As opposed to Windows (super kludge)? Win 3.1 != WinNT != Win95 != WinXP Or Linux (kludge king)? Linux 0.99 != Linux 2.0 != Linux 2.2 != Linux 2.4 > I think that most of us who have thought about DOS have thought about > how to provide modern hardware and peripheral support - video cards, > USB, hard drive controllers, etc. And most of us probably don't want to > re-invent Linux again. But it's not reinventing Linux again just to support networking, USB, etc. It's just features that exist "now" and that people really really want (or even need). If anything, reinventing Linux has already been done dozens of times, and while it's true we don't "need" all those OSes, there are lots of them (more than a dozen, in fact, see http://www.osnews.com ). If they all supported the same hardware, same features, same APIs, same license ... we wouldn't be having this discussion! > If we don't use another OS as a base then we > need to re-implement all of those device drivers in DOS, and that's not > feasible either. Right. > We have a limited number of people programming. Sadly. :-( > I think our resources > are better utilized by making sure we have modern software for DOS that > keeps the machines and DOS relevant. Trying to fix architectural > limitations of DOS is futile - you might as well just start with text > mode Linux. Seriously, though, as has been mentioned, a slim Linux with DOSEMU on top is *not* a bad idea. ;-) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
