On Sun, 26 Dec 2021 at 01:42, tom ehlert <t...@drivesnapshot.de> wrote:
> I have to accept that as true. Though 'multiscreening' is not what > everybody thinks of when thinknig 'multitasking'. I can't help what people may think. All I can do is when I see people spreading incorrect information, I can answer with the facts. Multitasking is nothing whatsoever to do with windowing or windowing interfaces or GUIs. From the 1960s onwards, there were many multitasking OSes, including UNIX and DEC VAX-VMS, which existed long before the first terminals that could display a GUI. Many OSes can run many processes in the background, and possibly bring them to the foreground and let you interact with them, as well as letting multiple users connect to 1 computer and use it concurrently – but can't display any kind of GUI or windows or anything like it. Plain text-mode Linux without GUIs installed is still multitasking. Hundreds of millions of Linux servers around the world sit there multitasking, running web servers and databases and a million other things, without any ability to display 2 of those processes on screen at once. Concurrent CP/M and later Concurrent DOS multitask, but they don't and can't do windowing. On the console on the host box, you could use Alt+the numeric keypad to switch between 4 virtual consoles, and each could be running its own separate task, all at once. Plus multiple dumb terminals on serial ports, and those users could have 4 tasks each, too. Still no windowing. One at a time, full-screen. That is what DR-DOS does. Not in the kernel, no; the functionality is in a surprisingly small program called TASKMAX.EXE, which uses functionality in the DR DOS 386 memory manager, EMM386.EXE. It is described in the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS#Novell_DOS_7_/_Contribution_by_Novell It even supports some graphical games. If you load the ViewMax shell, it can control TaskMax. I am told PC GEOS can as well, but I have not tested this yet. Some testing results are here: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=62270 > however DesqView, GEM and Windows 3.x are certainly multitasking systems > running on top of DOS. that doesn't make DOS a multitaskig system. No, but DR DOS is not MS-DOS. DR DOS started out as a cut-down version of Concurrent DOS, a true multiuser multitasking OS. Multitasking support is a built-in function that is included with the base OS and does not require any GUI or other layer installed. It can be used from the DOS command line. > >> programs would only multitask if specifically written to the DRDOS API > >> - which almost nobody did (for commercial avalable software). > > > This is not true. > ou might be right, but I would be surprised. I am telling you. I have done it. I have tested it. There are download links for boot disks I've built to demonstrate it on my blog, but the last time I posted a link to my blog, Jim Hall accused me of spamming, so I will not post it again. Google my name; I'm the only person with it. > I have no idea what you are arguing about. You said that there was no FOSS release of DOS by Microsoft. There was. This is nothing whatsoever to do with any leaked code, which must be regarded as stolen and cannot be used in anything else. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
