I have to agree with being leery about MS source code. As for the rest, waste a couple more decades of your life on buggy IT and you'll see what I mean. I'm thinking more and more there's no big niche for FreeDos. Too many problems trying to get it to do the tasks people want to do on their boxes these days, surf the web, play media and games. It all takes sophisticated hardware and Intel chips in real mode just aren't good with the new hardware.
I used to have multiple configurations of DOS, different config.sys and autoexec.bat files. I wrote a bat file to quickly replace the files and reboot in the new config. One config for games, one for writing apps, another for office work, etc. You could load only the software you needed for a particular activity. It made boots quicker and the box ran a lot better with only minimum drivers etc. I think the mistake LINUX and Windows make these days is loading every damn driver on the hard drive at boot time and all these other processes like clipboards, print spoolers, caches etc. Then wankers who write apps with background update processes and the like. Then it all has to get along on your little idiot Intel chip. In any given session on your box your lucky if you're using half the crap that's loaded up and most of it just gets in the way of high bandwidth network usage. Were I to design an OS these days I'd likely go with a 32 or 64 bit version of a DOS or VAX like OS and design it from the start to be configurable for different tasks. Keep it simple and load only what's needed with better integration of the pieces. Oddly enough Google Chrome may be headed in this direction. Its designed for network use and a simple web OS in it own right now. Same goes for the OS on smart phones. The days of the do everything OS on one box are pretty much over! Sometimes it seems multi-tasking was someone's hallucinogen induced notion of what computing should be. It just doesn't seem to work well and even when it does it just burns processor time. We don't multi-task. We switch from doing one thing to another back and forth. So do digital CPUs. Just a bad idea from the start, I'd avoid this model entirely. It all boils down to this What do people want to do with their boxes? Will this OS make it easier simpler for them to do it? CB On 3/27/14, Michael B. Brutman <mbbrut...@brutman.com> wrote: > On 3/26/2014 11:11 PM, Charles Belhumeur wrote: >> Tough line to walk folks! You wanna clone DOS but yet you don't want >> "to be tainted" by any suggestions you owe anything to DOS! Think >> that over a little. Say it to yourself and see how it sounds. > > Sure it sounds funny, but the funny part is not what you think it is. > You clearly fail to acknowledge that DOS has been cloned already, and > not just by FreeDOS. > > The message is that if you plan on contributing to FreeDOS it would be > best not to be tainted by looking directly at MS-DOS source code. That > same rule was enforced for the DR DOS developers too. It would be > especially silly since this is the 2.0 version, which was the first > usable version but it is still quite a long way ways from the far > superior DOS 3.3 or DOS 5 versions. > > This is a potential legal issue. The message is clear and not > contradictory in any way. Do not jeopardize FreeDOS's clean lineage by > looking at non-open source code and then trying contributing to FreeDOS. > >> It doesn't matter what the OS is for a lot of stuff. The Intel chips >> and architecture are what they are and they determine that any and all >> OSs have to have some source code in common at the machine or >> Assembler level. I kinda get a kick out of the LINUX crowd thinking >> the have a different platform than a WIntel box. > > Don't you think that the existence of OS/2 in the past and the growth of > Linux had something to do with the way Windows looks today? > > Sure. Operating systems have some common concepts. But I think that a > lot of the improvement we have seen in Windows in the last 15 years > comes from people seeing Linux working on the same exact hardware and > not crashing when you look at it the wrong way. > > Linux is about more than building another operating system. It > highlights a great alternative way to build software. You seem to have > missed this, and the general concept of open source software. > >> After three decades of using computers I've seen most of the OSs, >> apps, etc. Worked on niche stuff like programmable logic controllers >> and the like. Things a lot of CS types don;t see. I really don't >> have any loyalty or preference for any of it. When I have an IT >> project in front of me I do some research to find the best current >> tools to apply whoever makes em. Thats my interest in DOS. The >> modern OSs get in the way of simple tasks and just overcomplicate some >> things. None are the best solution or all things. Windows 8 promo >> song "All you wanna be is Everything at once!" explains a lot about >> why its tanking. No platform or OS can be all things and all solutions >> or apps. Stupid to try. Stupid to be loyal to any of it! We don't >> hear squat about the OSs or apps or any software for a lot of embedded >> IT in our lives like microwaves and cars. Why not? Good thing MS >> isn't involved in software development for automobiles! Can you >> imagine cars and trucks having deal with Windows 8 or Vista? Where do >> I put the key in now? How do I shut it off now? >> >> Charlie B. > > You sound like a user. See the freedos-users list. This list is for > people how are invested in the success of the platform. Contributors. > > I'm sorry if that sounds harsh but I'm making a point. Reread your email > and think about how the rest of us enjoyed your unique perspective. It > is inaccurate and rude. > > > Mike > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-devel mailing list > Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Put Bad Developers to Shame Dominate Development with Jenkins Continuous Integration Continuously Automate Build, Test & Deployment Start a new project now. Try Jenkins in the cloud. http://p.sf.net/sfu/13600_Cloudbees _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
