Re: [Freedos-user] (no subject)

[Dale E Sterner]

Weather it is worth while is for Corel to decide.
I used Excell at work and the only good way to
program it without visual basic is to record and 
save. It seems to work on visual basic. Excells
visual basic commands are not well documented.
I have a half dozen books on Excell macro commands
but could never find anything on visual basic commands.
Excell macro commands never seem to work as promised.
Record and save is a really limited programming method.
If you have ever used Excell and qpro you would
appreciate how much better qpro is.Qpro has the "let" command
which I use to have the macro rewrite itself while still
running. It determines certains values as column length
writes the need macro line to fit the need. Something
I could never do with Excell.

DS

 

On Sat, 21 Apr 2018 15:51:08 -0400 dmccunney 
writes:
> On Sat, Apr 21, 2018 at 2:30 PM, Dale E Sterner  
> wrote:
> > Yes I would purchase their updates; I already have
> > most of their stuff and use.it. They were a cut above
> > the rest of the dos software and I think they still
> > have users out there. I have MS Word 6 for dos;
> > what a real piece of junk..
> 
> I know *you* would purchase updates.  I just don't think the market 
> is
> big enough to make it worth *making* updates to the DOS apps.  The
> sales of updates wouldn't cover a fraction of the costs of making
> them, let alone make actual money,
> 
> > I wouldn't expect big dos sales but I think their fans
> > would be after it but not big time.
> 
> I'd hardly expect *any* DOS sales.  Who would *buy* it?
> 
> Such things are only useful to you if you have a working DOS system
> where you can run them native, or if you run them in some sort of
> virtual machine like VdosPlus.
> 
> But if you need a spreadsheet at all, you run Excel under Windows, 
> or
> Open Office/Libre Office Calc under Linux, OS/X or Windows, or a
> standalone cross platform spreadsheet like Gnumeric, or you work
> online through something like Google Sheets.  (And *all* of the
> non-Excel solutions above can read and write Excel format 
> worksheets.
> Like it or not, Excel is the standard everyone must adhere to.)
> 
> > Wordperfert 6.2 had alot of advanced features that
> > you wouldn't expect to see in dos like the matheditor
> 
> And Windows programs also have such features, so you don't need to 
> run
> WP 6.2 to get them.
> 
> > I use qpro alot; I like to tease my brother in law
> > that I use turbodos for taxes He's like you only wants
> > the latest MS junk.
> 
> No, I don't just want the latest MS junk.  You obviously haven't 
> been
> paying attention when I talk about what I run here.  I have an older
> version of MS Office, but the only component I use is Publisher for
> the odd DTP project, because I know how to make it do what I want.
> For WP, spreadsheets and the like, I use Libre Office, and some 
> stuff
> happens online with Google Docs/Sheets.  (In those instances, I am
> collaborating with others, and we need access to the same files.)
> 
> I still have some ancient DOS stuff I run under emulation, but 
> that's
> a hobby thing done for fun.  I do not and *cannot* use DOS as my
> production OS and DOS apps as my main applications.  To much of what 
> I
> do can't be *done* under DOS.
> 
> If you love QPro, fine.  If you can still use a DOS system and DOS
> applications to do what you need to do, more power to you.  But if 
> you
> can, you are one of a *very* small number of people.  The rest of us
> cannot.  And if you think there are a whole lot of people Just Like
> You who can (or *want* to) do everything in DOS - enough to make it
> worth while to maintain and sell DOS programs - I fear you are 
> living
> in a dream world.  The rest of the world has moved on.
> 
> > DS
> __
> Dennis
>  ..
> 
> > On Thu, 19 Apr 2018 17:48:13 -0400 dmccunney 
> 
> > writes:
> >> On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 2:12 PM, Dale E Sterner 
> 
> >> wrote:
> >> > I wouldn't expect them to ever release the source but
> >> > to put it back on the market for sale, like it use to be.
> >> > Not everthing can be open and free. If you tell them you
> >> > have a million downloads they may feel there is once
> >> > again a viable market for their product and will sell
> >> > and upgrade their dos line. I thing that Corel still has
> >> > alot of dos fans out there. I think alot of people miss
> >> > the simplicity and practicality of dos. Don't expect the
> >> > world to be completely free. DOS isn't worth much
> >> > without high quality software to run on it
> >>
> >> I wouldn't expect release of source, either, though it would be
> >> nice.
> >> But neither would I expect release for sale. Who would *buy* it?
> >> DOS
> >> has been dead for years, and I doubt there would be enough paying
> >> customers to make sales worth the while.  Actually *selling* 
> stuff
> >> involves costs to be *able* to sell it, and unless you 

Re: [Freedos-user] (no subject)

[Rugxulo]

Hi!

On Sat, Apr 21, 2018 at 2:51 PM, dmccunney  wrote:
>
> If you love QPro, fine.  If you can still use a DOS system and DOS
> applications to do what you need to do, more power to you.  But if you
> can, you are one of a *very* small number of people.  The rest of us
> cannot.  And if you think there are a whole lot of people Just Like
> You who can (or *want* to) do everything in DOS - enough to make it
> worth while to maintain and sell DOS programs - I fear you are living
> in a dream world.  The rest of the world has moved on.

Dennis, remember that we're currently on a DOS mailing list! More
specifically, one about a Free software clone (hi, Oracle!) of
(unsupported) MS-DOS.

You had a very minor point the first thousand times you told us how
obsolete DOS is, but at this point you're just a broken record.

Should we have false hope? No. Is DOS commercially dead? More or less.
At least, MS-DOS is no longer developed, nor is DR-DOS, nor is ROM DOS
(AFAIK). But all of them are still sold online (again, AFAIK).

DOSEMU2 (Linux-hosted) is still being worked upon, and there have been
efforts to port the current FreeDOS kernel to GCC (with 16-bit support
patches). Since that (also) works on x64, the latest efforts should
again continue to prolong the lifetime of DOS programs, which is good
since even traditional BIOS/CSM will "probably" disappear by 2020.

You act like we're trying to bring back Egyptian hieroglyphics! No,
this is functional software (often commercial) that we all used/bought
within our lifetimes. Yes, there are more popular systems (Windows,
Linux, Mac, et al). We already know this. It's like constantly
barraging C developers with "Java Java Java" or "C++ C++ C++". They
don't care, it still works. Maybe a bad analogy since C is still
actively developed (even Fortran and Ada, which are not as popular).
Moreso since FD tries to be binary compatible for old software rather
than source compatible (which itself is not necessarily easy or even
possible in most cases).

"Moved on" ... yes and no. There are still people using ancient
software. One person recently posted a bug report to VirtualBox about
Turbo Pascal 7 (DOS), which got fixed in ultra-latest release.
(Something to do with keyboard, probably not Finnish layout specific.
Silly Finns, what were they ever good for? [sarcasm] Oh yeah, Linux.
[Another brilliant Finn is nicknamed Bisqwit, but he seems totally
disinterested in Pascal these days in lieu of C++11.])

Sure, we all know that such a person should be using Free Pascal
instead, but they aren't!   ;-)At least FPC is still source
compatible to {$mode tp}, so it's not an impossible transition, if
ever needed.

You know the original XBox (2001) is also "dead", right? And yet even
MS is porting a few select games from it to its latest XBox One. I've
seen videos on YouTube (John Hancock) of at least two titles: Crimson
Skies, Panzer Dragoon Orta. (IIRC, someone said Sega lost sources to
the Saturn versions, so that rules out easy porting.) In video games,
that was two generations ago, and the current gen is already long in
the tooth. It was always sad how backwards compatibility is thrown
away, moreso in video games. Even the Nintendo Switch doesn't support
anything else directly, but they are porting some games to it (e.g.
Wii U's DKC: Tropical Freeze comes out [again] in May.)

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Re: [Freedos-user] (no subject)

[dmccunney]

On Sat, Apr 21, 2018 at 2:30 PM, Dale E Sterner  wrote:
> Yes I would purchase their updates; I already have
> most of their stuff and use.it. They were a cut above
> the rest of the dos software and I think they still
> have users out there. I have MS Word 6 for dos;
> what a real piece of junk..

I know *you* would purchase updates.  I just don't think the market is
big enough to make it worth *making* updates to the DOS apps.  The
sales of updates wouldn't cover a fraction of the costs of making
them, let alone make actual money,

> I wouldn't expect big dos sales but I think their fans
> would be after it but not big time.

I'd hardly expect *any* DOS sales.  Who would *buy* it?

Such things are only useful to you if you have a working DOS system
where you can run them native, or if you run them in some sort of
virtual machine like VdosPlus.

But if you need a spreadsheet at all, you run Excel under Windows, or
Open Office/Libre Office Calc under Linux, OS/X or Windows, or a
standalone cross platform spreadsheet like Gnumeric, or you work
online through something like Google Sheets.  (And *all* of the
non-Excel solutions above can read and write Excel format worksheets.
Like it or not, Excel is the standard everyone must adhere to.)

> Wordperfert 6.2 had alot of advanced features that
> you wouldn't expect to see in dos like the matheditor

And Windows programs also have such features, so you don't need to run
WP 6.2 to get them.

> I use qpro alot; I like to tease my brother in law
> that I use turbodos for taxes He's like you only wants
> the latest MS junk.

No, I don't just want the latest MS junk.  You obviously haven't been
paying attention when I talk about what I run here.  I have an older
version of MS Office, but the only component I use is Publisher for
the odd DTP project, because I know how to make it do what I want.
For WP, spreadsheets and the like, I use Libre Office, and some stuff
happens online with Google Docs/Sheets.  (In those instances, I am
collaborating with others, and we need access to the same files.)

I still have some ancient DOS stuff I run under emulation, but that's
a hobby thing done for fun.  I do not and *cannot* use DOS as my
production OS and DOS apps as my main applications.  To much of what I
do can't be *done* under DOS.

If you love QPro, fine.  If you can still use a DOS system and DOS
applications to do what you need to do, more power to you.  But if you
can, you are one of a *very* small number of people.  The rest of us
cannot.  And if you think there are a whole lot of people Just Like
You who can (or *want* to) do everything in DOS - enough to make it
worth while to maintain and sell DOS programs - I fear you are living
in a dream world.  The rest of the world has moved on.

> DS
__
Dennis
 ..

> On Thu, 19 Apr 2018 17:48:13 -0400 dmccunney 
> writes:
>> On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 2:12 PM, Dale E Sterner 
>> wrote:
>> > I wouldn't expect them to ever release the source but
>> > to put it back on the market for sale, like it use to be.
>> > Not everthing can be open and free. If you tell them you
>> > have a million downloads they may feel there is once
>> > again a viable market for their product and will sell
>> > and upgrade their dos line. I thing that Corel still has
>> > alot of dos fans out there. I think alot of people miss
>> > the simplicity and practicality of dos. Don't expect the
>> > world to be completely free. DOS isn't worth much
>> > without high quality software to run on it
>>
>> I wouldn't expect release of source, either, though it would be
>> nice.
>> But neither would I expect release for sale. Who would *buy* it?
>> DOS
>> has been dead for years, and I doubt there would be enough paying
>> customers to make sales worth the while.  Actually *selling* stuff
>> involves costs to be *able* to sell it, and unless you are confident
>> of a decent sales volume, it's not worth doing.
>>
>> Yes, FreeDOS 1.1 has gotten a million downloads, but that, by
>> itself,
>> is meaningless.  How many of the downloaders actually installed it,
>> and on what?  How many are actually using it, and what are they
>> doing
>> with it if they are?  (My own bet is that most actually using it are
>> doing do to play old DOS games *native*, not use stuff like WP or
>> QPro.)
>>
>> Best case, you get what Embarcadero once did.  They inherited the
>> former Borland DOS products like Turbo-C, and were offering them as
>> unsupported freeware downloads from a community link on their site.
>> There was no *paying* market for the DOS stuff, but making it
>> available was a nice gesture and good publicity for the Windows
>> based
>> stuff they could *sell*.
>>
>> > cheers
>> > DS.
>> __
>> Dennis
>>
>>
> -
> -
>> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
>> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! 

Re: [Freedos-user] (no subject)

[Dale E Sterner]

I think Corel should realease their old versions FREE but 
be able to sell updates to their fans. I did purchase a disks full
of updates from a woman who said they came from Corel.
It gave me a hand full of improvements. If I see any more
Corel updates - I'll buy.

cheers
DS



On Thu, 19 Apr 2018 17:40:14 -0500 Jim Hall  writes:
> On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 5:12 PM, dmccunney 
>  wrote:
> [..]
> > If Jim can convince Corel to offer source uinder a license that 
> will
> > let him add it the the FreeDOS distribution, I'll be surprised and
> > delighted.
> >
> > If anyone actually grabs that source, and uploads new and improved
> > versions incorporating changes they made to the source, I'll be
> > astonished.
> >
> > Having it available under a compatible open source license will 
> let
> > Jim make it available as part of FreeDOS.
> >
> > Having it available as Freeware gives folks something they can 
> *do*
> > with FreeDOS, which may be more important.
> 
> 
> I agree!
> 
> My view is "Ask, and they might do it." And "If you don't ask, they 
> won't."
> 
> The ideal is that vendors might release the source code under a
> Free/open source software license, like the GNU GPL. That would be
> great!
> 
> But some vendors might not be able to release the source code. Maybe
> there are legal restrictions, based on licensing agreements
> (libraries, etc) and it would be too much work for them to go 
> through
> the legal clearance process to release the source code to a classic
> DOS program. In this case, I'd be happy if they re-released the
> software as free (gratis). For example, Trius Inc did this with the
> shareware As-Easy-As spreadsheet. They provided an activation code
> that anyone could use to activate As-Easy-As 5.7.
> 
>
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**
>From Dale Sterner - MS organic chemistry
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jo00975a052
***


We Say Goodbye To Lara Spencer
risingstarnewspaper.com
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/5adb86e688ac26e654dest01duc

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