DOS ain't dead

I cannot tell you how TIRED I am, of all this!!

Note that below, in the middle of what began as a simple announcement about
UIDE, and a simple comment by me that it would be corrected, like it was, I
tried to END ALL THIS by offering you all a much-better UIDE, one that will
take only 1.75K of upper-memory and still provide caches up to 200-MB.

And do you know how many "customers" I got??

Only one. Tom Ehlert. ONLY ONE!!!

Despite my comments to Lucho earlier today, I now know how to have BOTH the
1.75K and 3.5K upper-memory "schemes" in one driver, so UIDEJR is unneeded,
as I wrote to Tom. I will do that upgrade, then proceed with a "plan" for
an even better UIDE, whose total upper-memory and HMA usage will not exceed
5K no-matter WHAT cache size is desired.

And except for Tom Ehlert and my three good associates, nobody noticed, and
nobody cares.

Just-Plain NOBODY CARES!!!

I will spare you the REST of my thoughts on all this. You would "NOT want
to know"!! And you would not care, anyway.

> I cannot tell you how TIRED I am, of all this!!
>
> Note that below, in the middle of what began as a simple announcement
> about
> UIDE, and a simple comment by me that it would be corrected, like it was,
> I
> tried to END ALL THIS by offering you all a much-better UIDE, one that
> will
> take only 1.75K of upper-memory and still provide caches up to 200-MB.
>
> And do you know how many "customers" I got??
Blah, blah.

How many times do I have to download it to stop your whining?

Jack,

Just what do you expect?

You don't accept e-mail directly, you'd rather receive messages through a challenged, mangling mediator.

You're dealing with a *very* small community; there aren't a lot of DOS users these days...and you've managed to alienate a great deal of them (who are TIRED of you!)

Everyone gets criticism and everyone gets people who ignore licenses. You in particular get an extra poking and prodding because of how you react. If you didn't react so badly, you wouldn't have so much trouble dealing with people.

I'd like to make a few suggestions:

a) Ignore people who are being disrespectful and rude. Don't respond. What's the point in replying? If someone doesn't like you, they're getting a kick out of seeing you getting all charged up.

b) Explain your software, what you've done, your benchmarks and the direction you're taking the software in your documentation. If people disagree and think it should use method X instead of method Y and have options A, B, and C instead of D, E, and F ---- they can fork it. Even if you caved in and changed the software to go in someone else's direction, you'd end up writing software you don't want, need, or agree with...which takes all the fun out of it.

NONE of my friends and associates are "challenged" nor "mangling".
I write software, and I am pleased that they wish to distribute it
and handle many user comments for me. Also, who are YOU and what
is YOUR e-mail address?? My friends and associates know who I am.

NONE of my associates or users have ever asked for any explanation
of "benchmarks". They KNOW how to check benchmarks. And NO ONE
before you has EVER asked about the "direction" of my drivers. I
get enough compliments like "Superb!", or "Your drivers have given
new life to my DOS systems!", to be aware they know and APPRECIATE
the "direction" my drivers have always taken.

If you are tired of my drivers or of me, feel free to use whatever
other DOS hard-disk, CD/DVD, or caching drivers you desire. Your
choice, as is true for all adults in this world.

Don't misread everything I've written. I didn't say the software was bad - it's good software.

My comments were largely related to the posts I've seen on the boards directed at you, and your replies. For example, http://www.bttr-software.de/forum/forum_entry.php?id=861

If it weren't for your own posts, you wouldn't have gotten as frustrated as you have.

> http://www.bttr-software.de/forum/forum_entry.php?id=861

I agree with everything said by Jack in the above post.

Mr SOL, you greatly underestimate the DOS user base. It's still millions! And I mean millions of real DOS users booting DOS under real hardware. The main page of the FreeDOS site lists 3 types of DOS uses today:

1. Games
2. Business software
3. Embedded systems

Groups (2) and (3) don't use emulation. There are still millions of 10 or more years old machines that still work and run the business software in (2). There are still poor countries where old computers are used. And the embedded systems, with only Datalight claiming to have sold over 1000000 (one million!) of copies of ROM-DOS (what about the other DOS kernels that can also be used for embedded systems?!) using DOS are many millions too, many of them probably still working.

Some may think that my numbers are "sucked from my fingers". So were the numbers of another user of this forum, in which he still believes. So I believe in mine.

I think the DOS user base is much smaller than *you* think :)

ROM-DOS was introduced in 1989. MS-DOS sold millions of copies too, but that's not really relevant in 2007 either. Nor is how many copies of Windows 3.1 or OS/2.

I also think you're assuming all console business software that looks like DOS *is* DOS, whereas a great deal of it is Unix based.

Granted, there are still many businesses with DOS software --- they're not here. They're using the same software they've been using for years - they're not swapping drivers out or adding in new potentially unstable caching software. They're not really part of the "user base" because you'll never hear from them...they most likely don't even know they're running DOS, and they certainly don't care. If they have a problem, some vendor comes in and fixes it.

Embedded systems --- same thing as business "users"

Gamers, as you hinted, are mostly using dosbox. Again, they're not users of freedos, strange new device drivers or anything else offered by the community. They don't need any support here since it's not real DOS and there's no installation or loss of kernel files, formatting, partitioning, hardware problems, etc...

The evidence that the DOS community is very small is all around you. Open your eyes. This is "one of the most popular" DOS forums as noted by another user under the Grand Re-Opening thread. There are *16* registered users here and very little activity.

Similarly you'll see empty IRC chat rooms and the like, and you'll notice that DOS does not come up on any form of market share analysis, and arachne on no browser market share lists.

What's a lack of popularity imply? Not much, really. But get a reality check. Take a look at the title of this thread by Jack himself --- "one customer" --- doesn't that say enough?

The number of users running DOS (whether they know that or not) and the number of DOS users active on the Internet or FidoNet are very different numbers. As Udo Kuhnt noted, DOS users are very shy

> The number of users running DOS (whether they know that or not) and the
> number of DOS users active on the Internet or FidoNet are very different
> numbers. As Udo Kuhnt noted, DOS users are very shy

My comment that Jack is "dealing with a *very* small community" and that many of them have grown tired of him still stands as completely truthful.

If you want to stand by some random number "in the millions" counting users who if asked would say they're not DOS users (don't know it's DOS), don't work with the OS directly, don't update it or its drivers, don't appear anywhere online and may or may not exist --- then go for it.

That really has no bearing on Jack's user base, though, which was the point.

You, SOL, need a "reality check" if you believe the "title" of this thread
has anything-at-all to do with the number of DOS users, small or large.

In fact I was addressing how FEW current DOS users "care" about any better
software than what came on their ancient "DOS distribution" files.

Lucho and I "knock our brains out", creating drivers and creating a "boot"
diskette representing the BEST possible in DOS systems.

And how many people seem at-all "interested"?? Few. FAR too few!

Saying more might "impinge" on the educational or logical "qualifications"
of FAR too many in the U.S.A. or Western Europe. Sad, that on every U.S.
television channel, there are many "Paycheck Cash-Advance" and "Bankruptcy
Consulting" commercials. Sadder still, how Intel and Gates get RICH thru
"Peddling TRASH to the masses!" [a comment from a funny Peter Sellers film
released in 1962]. But, the "masses" NEVER listen, so "Enough said!"

Hi Jack,

> You, SOL, need a "reality check" if you believe the "title" of this thread
> has anything-at-all to do with the number of DOS users, small or large.

And you need to learn to read :) --- I was referring to this community and your user base, which is indeed small, as you are agreeing.

> Lucho and I "knock our brains out", creating drivers and creating a
> "boot"
> diskette representing the BEST possible in DOS systems.
>
> And how many people seem at-all "interested"?? Few. FAR too few!

I used to get ~3000 downloads a day for my boot floppy - but that was 6 years ago. People don't use DOS as much any longer.

> Consulting" commercials. Sadder still, how Intel and Gates get RICH
> thru
> "Peddling TRASH to the masses!" [a comment from a funny Peter Sellers

You mean trash like MS-DOS, upon which all today's other DOSes are based?

DOS is extremely limited in its capabilities It may be faster to boot, use less ram and hard disk space --- but it doesn't offer the networking, drivers, multitasking, etc that other operating systems do, regardless of their [conceived] bloat - they offer a great deal more.

By saying "small or large", I was NOT voicing ANY sort of agreement with
you about the number of DOS users still extant. Actually, I agree with
Lucho that this number is much HIGHER than you believe. If you feel my
saying "small or large" COMMITS me to one or the other, only YOU need to
learn how to read!

In case you failed to notice, this board was CLOSED for 5 days. Within
less than 12 hours of this board being re-opened, YOU show up, and began
again an issue that I thought Robert Riebisch had summarily ENDED by his
shutting DOWN this forum!

If you use XMGR, you need to get another such driver. There are a lot
of them for you to choose, most of them "out of maintenance" so you need
not worry about their authors absolutely REJECTING all of your opinions.

And if you use UIDE, you need to get another disk/CD/DVD/caching driver.
If there AREN'T any for you to choose, NOT my problem -- You need to get
ANOTHER driver, and USE IT on any such DOS systems as you may have left.

DO get yourself other DOS drivers, Sol -- ANY other drivers!! -- as I am
damned-well TIRED of having to deal with YOU, as well!!

> By saying "small or large", I was NOT voicing ANY sort of agreement with
> you about the number of DOS users still extant. Actually, I agree with

Tsk tsk. Again, the point is that your user base is small, and you're alienating it. I'm trying to help you here.

Edit: Jack, this means that there aren't many people using your drivers. Figured the above might not be clear enough for you.

> In case you failed to notice, this board was CLOSED for 5 days. Within
> less than 12 hours of this board being re-opened, YOU show up, and began
> again an issue that I thought Robert Riebisch had summarily ENDED by his

The post (which you created) wasn't deleted or locked.

> If you use XMGR, you need to get another such driver. There are a lot
> of them for you to choose, most of them "out of maintenance" so you need
> not worry about their authors absolutely REJECTING all of your opinions.
>
> And if you use UIDE, you need to get another disk/CD/DVD/caching driver.
> If there AREN'T any for you to choose, NOT my problem -- You need to get
> ANOTHER driver, and USE IT on any such DOS systems as you may have left.
>
> DO get yourself other DOS drivers, Sol -- ANY other drivers!! -- as I am
> damned-well TIRED of having to deal with YOU, as well!!

Take a look again at my original suggestions in my reply to you. Add to it:

c) If something can be interpreted more than one way, don't make ridiculous assumptions or jump to conclusions.

Whether or not I've used any of your software has no bearing on my posting a reply. Either way that reply would be there.

> People don't use DOS as much any longer.

> DOS is extremely limited in its capabilities

> doesn't offer the networking, drivers, multitasking, etc that other operating
> systems do, regardless of their conceived bloat - they offer a great deal

OK. Got your opinion. You don't even have DOS, thus now you can leave this forum

---
This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

> That really has no bearing on Jack's user base, though, which was the point.

Wrong! Do you know that huge manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Lenovo (who bought the whole PC division of IBM) keep selling many millions of desktop and portable computers with FreeDOS pre-installed? Do you know that FreeDOS includes some of earlier drivers by Jack? The next FreeDOS distribution will include his latest drivers, which are already in their software list and at Ibiblio.

> OK. Got your opinion. You don't even have DOS, thus now you can leave this
> forum

Do you know sol's computer(s)? Otherwise be careful with your assumptions, please!

---
Forum admin

> > [DOS] doesn't offer the networking, drivers, multitasking, etc that other
> > operating systems do, regardless of their conceived bloat - they
> > offer a great deal
>
> OK. Got your opinion.

Opinion? No - facts. Have you never heard of Unix, Linux, VMS, Plan 9...?

> You don't even have DOS,

There is no way you can know if that is true.

> thus now you can leave this forum

*Having* DOS is not part of the membership pledge.

> I used to get ~3000 downloads a day for my boot floppy - but that was 6 years ago.

Was it a network, anti-virus or service boot floppy? On which DOS kernel was it based? Do you still keep it?

> And do you know how many "customers" I got??
>
> Only one. Tom Ehlert. ONLY ONE!!!

But this customer (author of DriveSnapshot) is not like most others. Here's what he wrote:

> In fact one of the biggest improvement to DOS - which is useful to ANY
> user - is completely new (if you count 2003 as 'new'), was never
> before even attempted in DOS, and is completely API independent.
>
> I'm talking about Jack's UDMA drivers.

I hope that he will excuse me for quoting him here, and needless to say that I fully agree with him!

> I hope that he will excuse me for quoting him here, and needless to say
> that I fully agree with him!

Well, this 'user' represents a lot of users.

Another happy 'user' of UDMA is probably Steve Gibson (author of SpinRite),
representing also a large number of customers.

OTOH, none of our customers are users of DOS in a real sense; they are just
using our products, and take any package that we make to support our product.

BTW: another significant number of DOS users just needs it to flash the BIOS

> Wrong! Do you know that huge manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard, Dell and
> Lenovo (who bought the whole PC division of IBM) keep selling many
> millions of desktop and portable computers with FreeDOS
> pre-installed? Do you know that FreeDOS includes some of earlier drivers
> by Jack? The next FreeDOS distribution will include his latest drivers,
> which are already in their software

I'm not sure about HP or Lenovo --- but Dell does not sell with FreeDOS pre-installed, it's the dell "nSeries" and comes with a FreeDOS install disk. This was done because it's the only way they could avoid legal problems with MS. From what I understand, they are required to sell their hardware with an OS.

The other flaws in your statements are similar to your previous ones. These companies *do not* release sales numbers - you have no clue how many people are purchasing the hardware without Windows installed.

If you think even 10% of the people buying these brand new ~2 GHz PCs are using them with FreeDOS, an OS that can't even come close to taking advantage of the hardware...then you're totally delusional and I see no point in replying to you any further.

One last thing --- my whole point was that Jack has and is totally alienating his users. This especially includes all FreeDOS users, he "threw the baby out with the bathwater" when he had some problems with a couple people.

> I'm not sure about HP or Lenovo

All the HP desktop PCs that our university purchased this winter came with FreeDOS pre-installed. About Lenovo, I mean their notebooks.

> The other flaws in your statements are similar to your previous ones.
> These companies *do not* release sales numbers - you have no clue how many
> people are purchasing the hardware without Windows installed.

Sure, but there are many. Many people don't like being forced to buy Windows.

> If you think even 10% of the people buying these brand new ~2 GHz PCs are
> using them with FreeDOS, an OS that can't even come close to taking
> advantage of the hardware...then you're totally delusional and I see no
> point in replying to you any further.

I don't think so, don't worry.

> One last thing --- my whole point was that Jack has and is totally
> alienating his users. This especially includes all FreeDOS users, he
> "threw the baby out with the bathwater" when he had some problems with a
> couple people.

Even a spoon of tar can pollute a barrel of honey.

> If you think even 10% of the people buying these brand new ~2 GHz PCs are
> using them with FreeDOS, an OS that can't even come close to taking
> advantage of the hardware...then you're totally delusional and I see no
> point in replying to you any further.

There are not a lot of useful floppy distros for other OSes, whether they are "superior" or not to DOS. Even FreeDOS is kinda fractured, and new stuff isn't always kept together (one of the main reasons I make my own mini distro). A lot of people actually are using old stuff when newer, better is available. In short, DOS isn't as bad as it used to be.

Besides OctaOS and MenuetOS, what other small OSes are there that are actually usable? tomsrtbt is like > 5 years old, so I don't use it. No, I do not consider his exactly super usable to the average person. The typical Linuxer gravitates towards Ubuntu (or Debian, etc.), SUSE, or Fedora. These are way way way more complicated than DOS ever was, but I still wouldn't say DOS is useless or bad. In fact, if FreeDOS had half their developers, they'd be further along instead of very slowly moving at a crawl (which is still pretty darn good!).

> One last thing --- my whole point was that Jack has and is totally
> alienating his users. This especially includes all FreeDOS users, he
> "threw the baby out with the bathwater" when he had some problems with a
> couple people.

Not sure if you knew, but his current drivers do work with FreeDOS. Thanks again, Jack.

> There are not a lot of useful floppy distros for other OSes, whether they
> are "superior" or not to DOS. Even FreeDOS is kinda fractured, and new
> stuff isn't always kept together (one of the main reasons I make my own
> mini distro). A lot of people actually are using old stuff when newer,
> better is available. In short, DOS isn't as bad as it used to be.

Even if I agreed that the FreeDOS floppy distro was "useful" - it's not the point. It doesn't take very good advantage of new hardware.

It does inch forward though - but not really at the pace of hardware advances, which is unfortunate for the remaining DOS users.

> Even if I agreed that the FreeDOS floppy distro was "useful" - it's not
> the point. It doesn't take very good advantage of new hardware.
>
> It does inch forward though - but not really at the pace of hardware
> advances, which is unfortunate for the remaining DOS users.

What does DOS not do that it should do? Why should everything be bundled into the kernel? Should it have ZFS (128-bit file system)? UAC? Require 128 MB (or even 1 GB) like some GNU/Linux distros do? Compiz Fusion? Mozilla Firefox? Xen? DX10? Blu-Ray? SSSE3?

What I meant to ask in the last message is this: What do you use computers for and what apps haven't (realistically) been ported to DOS yet? What OS is your current workhorse? Is it really targeted towards the same uses? Can't they both coexist peacefully?

In other words, DOS may not have every new feature (mainly due to proprietary crud and not enough developers), but it supports "old" hardware as well as any (if not better). A 486 won't run most current OSes. DOS has many apps for it. There is no sense in throwing all that away. Create new stuff all you want. I don't reject it all. But DOS has value, so I stick with it.

> > Even if I agreed that the FreeDOS floppy distro was "useful" - it's not
>
> What does DOS not do that it should do? Why should everything be bundled
> .........
> What I meant to ask in the last message is this: What do you use computers
> for and what apps haven't (realistically) been ported to DOS yet? What OS

I like to code programs/websites while I listen to music. I like to compile/view them without exiting my editor. I like to download my favorite TV shows with bittorrent while I'm doing this.

Maybe take a break and watch the TV shows or browse the web without closing all of this stuff so I can start right back up again where I left off when I'm done instead of having to re-open everything and find the places I was in before.

I like to be able to run an httpd server with SSL so that friends can login and see what I'm working on --- and an instant messenger so I can give them the url + passwords.

I like to have OS level partition encryption to protect client information.

I like to make use of my obscure network and sound cards. I like to have logging in the background, so if something goes wrong I know what happened, even if I'm not here.

I want automated backups to store to an external USB hard disk at 3 am, even if I'm still up using my PC, doing all the things mentioned above.

> Can't they both coexist peacefully?

Why should they? What's DOS got to offer?

> hardware as well as any (if not better). A 486 won't run most current
> OSes. DOS has many apps for it. There is no sense in throwing all that

A 900 mhz PC is "old" to me. Why would I waste the electricity and create the additional ozone running a second PC --- when it can't offer me anything running DOS than this one already does?

> Why should they? What's DOS got to offer?

Compatibility and low footprint as well as direct access to the hardware and an established userbase with tons of online support. Oh, and tons of legacy apps, including classic games. But then, you don't care about any of that.

What's Menuet got to offer? OctaOS? SolarOS? DexOS? SkyOS? Haiku? FreeBSD? OpenBSD? Minix? OS/2? Windows? AIX? Tru64? IRIX? Solaris?

Why do I feel like I've had this conversation before?

> A 900 mhz PC is "old" to me. Why would I waste the electricity and create
> the additional ozone running a second PC --- when it can't offer me
> anything running DOS than this one already does?

One PC doesn't necessarily cut it these days, at least not according to some people. And 900 Mhz is probably better than what you get when you multitask downloading, programming, editing, logging, backup, etc.

In fact, my Athlon64x2 1.7 Ghz laptop slows down to 800 Mhz in "power saver" mode, and it's brand new. (And not all new computers are exactly energy efficient. A lot of hype gets thrown around re: new stuff, especially when they want you to buy it.) But clock speed isn't as relevant these days anyways. But you knew that already.

---
Know your limits.h

> Besides OctaOS and MenuetOS, what other small OSes are there that are actually usable?

I don't like the design of Octa/Menuet

Of course they are "better" than 10 GiB Vi$tas/Loonixes, but still nothing for me ... DOS is DOS

> Not sure if you knew, but his current drivers do work with FreeDOS. Thanks again, Jack.

---
This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

> I like to code programs/websites while I listen to music. I like to

... 1'000'000 other things

Then you should:

1. Avoid DOS
and
2. Avoid DOS forums

> A 900 mhz PC is "old" to me.

Vi$ta/Vixta-Loonix extreme CPU/memory hogging crap

> Why would I waste the electricity and create the additional ozone running a second PC

Why should you waste many 100 Watt of electricity for running your 4 or 8 cores per 64 bit in ONE PC only to prevent your great non-DOS kernel from becoming unusably unresponsive and taking hours to boot or shut down ?

> when it can't offer me anything running DOS than this one already does?

Sure it is DOS at all ?

---
This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

> Do you know sol's computer(s)?

Judging from his posts only. I'm not the God ... nor NSA

---
This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

> > Why should they? What's DOS got to offer?
>
> Compatibility and low footprint as well as direct access to the hardware
> and an established userbase with tons of online support. Oh, and tons of
> legacy apps, including classic games. But then, you don't care about any
> of that.

Pfft, forget DOS then! Why don't I just use my BIOS as my OS? It's even more compatible, has an even lower footprint, and has even better direct access to the hardware and official online support from the company!

Not as many apps though :)

If I want to use classic games, I can use an emulator. Just like I dont need to have a nintendo, sega genesis, super nintendo, n64, and playstation in my house --- I don't really need a separate DOS machine.

> people[/url]. And 900 Mhz is probably better than what you get when you
> multitask downloading, programming, editing, logging, backup, etc.

Nope. 900 mhz PC doesn't do a very good job of playing DVDs, whereas I can have all these things in the background while one plays.

> Then you should:
>
> 1. Avoid DOS
> and
> 2. Avoid DOS forums

What makes you think I don't still use DOS? The fact is, that I do. I emulate it, and I created a multi-boot USB key that includes it. I write code for it on occasion.

I'm just not delusional about the reality that:

1. It's not 'better' than most newer, and even some older OSes.
2. The active DOS user base is very, very small.
3. That it too is an MS creation, like any other.

Stick Windows 3.1 on a brand new PC, and it'll seem very fast, much closer to hardware -- and everything else will look bloated. Windows 95 probably would too, to a slightly lesser degree.

MS-DOS could've had a ~30k kernel and ~20k command.com for filesize and used up much less memory --- and that's not being very conservative at all.

> > A 900 mhz PC is "old" to me.
>
> Vi$ta/Vixta-Loonix extreme CPU/memory
> hogging crap

I don't use Vista - and only an ignorant person would say Linux is an extreme CPU/memory hog.

> Why should you waste many 100 Watt of electricity for running your 4 or 8
> cores per 64 bit in ONE PC only to prevent your great non-DOS
> kernel from becoming unusably unresponsive and taking hours to boot or
> shut down ?

My boot time is about 30 seconds - that's to an OS which has loaded drivers for my SATA, DVD, graphics card, network card and USB controllers...one that's fully multitasking and multiuser.

And even if it did take longer, it doesn't matter much:

% uptime
8:53 AM up 168 days, 23:03, 2 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

Hrmm :) awefully stable drivers.

It seems to me, based on your comments, that you're really only familiar with MS products. That's very sad.

> I don't use Vista - and only an ignorant person would say Linux is an
> extreme CPU/memory hog.

I forget what Linux distro it was, but one of 'em I saw recently (OpenSUSE? Fedora?) said "1 GB of RAM recommended". Sorry if I feel that's a little excessive. Even PuppyLinux requires 128 MB of RAM nowadays, and ReactOS needs 64 MB at minimum. Of course, that's considered excellent by most people. DOS is sometimes best, especially for recycled PCs. No, you don't need it if you want to upgrade all your hardware. And no, it doesn't support everything (due to lack of developers). But it works for our purposes, so we use it (as well as others, too).

> My boot time is about 30 seconds - that's to an OS which has loaded
> drivers for my SATA, DVD, graphics card, network card and USB
> controllers...one that's fully multitasking and multiuser.

Ah yes, the wonderful complexity of multiuser, permissions, symlinks, multitasking, threads, Unicode, networking protocols, tons of configuration files, dynamic linking, GUIs, etc. But DOS can do most of that, anyways (without forcing it down your throat).

I don't think even MS recommends shutdown / reboot anymore. Sleep/Standby and Hibernation (plus ReadyBoost) are what they suggest to speed things up.

P.S. You must have a really fast PC because most OSes (even Damn Small Linux) don't boot up in less than 1.5 mins.

> And even if it did take longer, it doesn't matter much:
>
> % uptime
> 8:53 AM up 168 days, 23:03, 2 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
>
> Hrmm :) awefully stable drivers.

You never did tell everyone (else) what your favorite OS is.

---
Know your limits.h

> If I want to use classic games, I can use an emulator. Just like I dont
> need to have a nintendo, sega genesis, super nintendo, n64, and
> playstation in my house --- I don't really need a separate DOS machine.

Things like DOSBox require a fairly fast cpu relative to what cpu speed you're trying to emulate. The README.TXT says a high-end machine will only roughly be equivalent to a 486. Well heck, running FreeDOS natively (or DOSEMU??) would be much faster! (And I shudder to think 486 speed is acceptable these days, ugh.) So yes, a dedicated machine can be a good thing.

P.S. If 900 Mhz is too slow for you, how could you even stand a NES, Genesis, SNES, N64, SP1, XBox 1, etc.?? Those are all much slower than that, even, but people still had fun with 'em. Even the 2600 or VIC20 was popular in its day, and those are severely cramped. I guess beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.

> P.S. You must have a really fast PC because most OSes (even Damn Small
> Linux) don't boot up in less than 1.5 mins.

It's not a PC, albeit it can now run DOS It's the software that is so quick.

> You never did tell everyone (else) what your favorite OS is

Whatever he runs, I suppose. That boots in 30 seconds. Whose new version was announced yesterday, didn't you hear?

(Although you can work after 30 seconds, the next 30 seconds the OS is sluggish)

30 seconds is great compared to Windows and Linux, but DOS can boot in less than 1 second

On the other hand, if you could how many drivers, daemons, scripts and applications are started in these 30 seconds in the background...

By the way, FreeBSD also starts up very quickly. And probably all other BSD variants.

> I like to code programs/websites while I listen to music. I like to
> compile/view them without exiting my editor. I like to download my
> favorite TV shows with bittorrent while I'm doing this.

You can compile programs w/ error msgs, + view the screen output w/o leaving the editor. Just use VIM, FED, GNU Emacs, FED, FASMD, RHIDE, SETEDIT, etc.

Music? Any CD audio player (e.g. SJGPlay or Eric's CDROM2) should let you listen in the background. In fact, most module players and Mpxplay (with tweaking of DOS/32A) will let you go about your business too.

And I know you know that DR-DOS (among other more obscure: Real32?? ZDOS??) multitasks fine. Granted, most people coding for DOS don't use pthreads or Ruby's green threads. In fact, I'm still waiting for a decent example for MT (guess I'll have to modify DISKCOPY, sounds like a good candidate IMO). And don't make me mention Win 3.x as a good multitasker. It sorta works (barely), at least. (Oh, and DesqView, duh.) Most of that isn't "free", though.

> Maybe take a break and watch the TV shows or browse the web without
> closing all of this stuff so I can start right back up again where I left
> off when I'm done instead of having to re-open everything and find the
> places I was in before.

VIM (:mksession) and TDE (Alt-Shift-W) allow you to save your sessions / workspaces. So you don't have to worry about losing your place.

Watch tv shows? Bah. Just watch .FLI or .ANI instead.
Actually, DOS386 reported getting an older GNASH working with HX.
There's also DUGL Player and MPLAYER and Display for DOS.
I'm sure you've also heard of Quickview.

> I like to be able to run an httpd server with SSL so that friends can
> login and see what I'm working on --- and an instant messenger so I can
> give them the url + passwords.

DOS Lynx w/ SSL support is here.
leetIRC and WebServ are here.
Jaffa and Toffee are here.
SSH, SCP, SFTP are here.

> I like to have OS level partition encryption to protect client
> information.

Fun fun fun. Actually, we have encryption in DOS too. See this.

> I like to make use of my obscure network and sound cards. I like to have
> logging in the background, so if something goes wrong I know what
> happened, even if I'm not here.

Okay, it's true, DOS sucks at SB Live! because nobody (except LMP or Mpxplay) supports it. This will eventually be fixed (I hope).

> I want automated backups to store to an external USB hard disk at 3 am,
> even if I'm still up using my PC, doing all the things mentioned above.

Bah, stable modern OSes shouldn't need backups with all their uber-security.

> Why should they? What's DOS got to offer?

Fun.

> A 900 mhz PC is "old" to me. Why would I waste the electricity and create
> the additional ozone running a second PC --- when it can't offer me
> anything running DOS than this one already does?

Have you seen the decTOP?

And a final note: FreeDOS is technically a newer OS than GNU/Linux, BSD, Windows, etc. And it has less developers. So don't blame FreeDOS, blame everyone who isn't helping!

I wrote:

> You don't even have DOS

rr wrote:

> Do you know sol's computer(s)?

sol wrote:

> What makes you think I don't still use DOS? The fact is, that I do. I emulate it

All clarified now ?

Maybe sol one day will be able to exist without Internet or even without Oxygen - as soon as a smart brain invents a technology how to "emulate" those ...

Steve wrote:

> *Having* DOS is not part of the membership pledge

YES DOS is the only OS in the universe allowing something like this - if you registered to a forum of BE-OS, MENU-et-OS or some other OS, only for the purpose to tell the other guys how crappy this BE- or whatever-OS is, you would get banned very quickly. But DOS is DOS

sol wrote:

> I don't use Vista - and only an ignorant person would say Linux is an extreme CPU/memory hog.

YES, it's a crucial part of my ignorance that I bothered to test

> based on your comments, that you're really only familiar with MS products

YES, I am somewhat familiar with some M$-virii, as you are as well.

Anyway, this thread is CRAP, I won't waste any more time or electricity for it ...

EOD

---
This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

> Bah, stable modern OSes shouldn't need backups with all their
> uber-security.

Shouldn't, but in the real world... Besides, every HD will die sometime, the power will fail the day before you buy a UPS...

<clip>

> Watch tv shows? Bah. Just watch
> .FLI or .ANI
> instead.
> Actually, DOS386 reported getting an older
> GNASH working with HX.
> There's also DUGL Player
> and MPLAYER and
> Display for DOS.
> I'm sure you've also heard of
> Quickview.
>
> > I like to be able to run an httpd server with SSL so that friends can
> > login and see what I'm working on --- and an instant messenger so I can
> > give them the url + passwords.
>
> DOS Lynx w/ SSL support is
> here.
> leetIRC and WebServ are
> here.
> Jaffa and Toffee are
> here.
> SSH, SCP, SFTP are

<clip>

Yadayadayada. I'm aware of all the DOS software. The point is not the individual things that need doing - it's that many need to be done at once. Go ahead, try to use your desqview to run arachne, an editor, play music and host a website all at the same time. Run the encryption in the background, too.

What? You can't? DOS will crash miserably? Oh. Gee, maybe that was my point.

> Bah, stable modern OSes shouldn't need backups with all their
> uber-security.

All of the best OSes revolve around prevention and preparedness, whereas in DOS, you must use undelete.

> And a final note: FreeDOS is technically a newer OS than GNU/Linux, BSD,
> Windows, etc. And it has less developers. So don't blame FreeDOS, blame
> everyone who isn't helping!

Well then iteven more, doesn't it? I did mention newer OSes are better along with many older OSes. But I do disagree --- FreeDOS is intended to be an exact clone of MS-DOS, btw, which makes it old, just as cloning an OS from 1970 wouldn't make a "new" OS.

> YES DOS is the only OS in the universe allowing something like this
> - if you registered to a forum of BE-OS, MENU-et-OS or some other OS,
> only for the purpose to tell the other guys how crappy this BE- or
> whatever-OS is, you would get banned very quickly. But DOS is DOS
>

Way to clip the section where I said I boot to it from a USB key. So now you're criticizing *how* I use DOS?

> Maybe sol one day will be able to exist without Internet or even
> without Oxygen - as soon as a smart brain invents a technology how to
> "emulate" those ...

"Hahaha" because not requiring junk equates to not requiring necessities?

> > I don't use Vista - and only an ignorant person would say Linux is an
> extreme CPU/memory hog.
>
> YES, it's a crucial part of my ignorance that I bothered to test
>

The problem with ignorance, is that those who are, are usually ignorant to it. If you weren't, you'd realize Linux is just a kernel and has very minimal requirements.

One of my mail servers was running a very busy mail server and a website with 32 mb of RAM. If I felt like it, I could login and browse the web, download torrents. listen to music and whatever else I wanted while it handled thousands of e-mails a day, served PHP pages and performed backups.

Of course, you've only looked at the flashiest, major brand-new desktop-oriented distributions, not those intended for the minimalist.

If anyone actually cared to have it floppy sized these days, tomsrtbt would still be updated. Why don't you try googling that and learning something instead of arguing over things you don't understand?

> Mr SOL, you greatly underestimate the DOS user base. It's still millions!
> And I mean millions of real DOS users booting DOS under real hardware. The
> main page of the FreeDOS site lists 3 types of DOS uses today:

BTW I foud that Seagate started using Free SW for their diag. tools. New Seatools bootdisk use FreeDOS kernel 2035, ctmouse and Seatools is now compiled by DJGPP using Allegro instead Zinc ZAF. So why they didn't used linux or windows instead? :)

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> Yadayadayada. I'm aware of all the DOS software.

Actually, unless you keep looking consistently, you're bound to not be aware what's been ported, written, etc. So if you only use something else (e.g. Linux), you're bound to miss out of what FreeDOS now offers (e.g. HX or Blocek or whatever).

> All of the best OSes revolve around prevention and preparedness, whereas
> in DOS, you must use undelete.

Not even that because FreeDOS undelete doesn't support FAT32. If only someone somewhere would write one.

> Well then iteven more, doesn't it? I did mention newer OSes are better
> along with many older OSes. But I do disagree --- FreeDOS is intended to
> be an exact clone of MS-DOS, btw, which makes it old, just as cloning an
> OS from 1970 wouldn't make a "new" OS.

Okay, first of all, to be specific I think they are aiming to replicate functionality and compatibility with MS-DOS 6.22 (no longer updated since 1994) with possible extra stuff from 7.x (Win9x) or 8.x (WinME). And, as you know, they aren't stubborn as to prevent improvements: FAT32, NLS, LFN-aware utils, etc., things MS-DOS 6.22 never had. I mean, last I checked FreeDOS reported DOS version 7.10 (as opposed to FD beta 8 or DR-DOS or RxDOS).

> BTW I foud that Seagate started using Free SW for their diag. tools. New
> Seatools bootdisk use FreeDOS kernel 2035, ctmouse and Seatools is now
> compiled by DJGPP using Allegro instead Zinc ZAF. So why they didn't used
> linux or windows instead? :)

Because their tools are already written for DOS, and it makes it much easier to make software that accesses hardware directly to do so OS-independently or using DOS.

READ: "Much easier to make software that can destroy your data and crash your PC in DOS."

> Okay, first of all, to be specific I think they are aiming to replicate
> functionality and compatibility with MS-DOS 6.22 (no longer updated since
> 1994) with possible extra stuff from 7.x (Win9x) or 8.x (WinME). And, as
> you know, they aren't stubborn as to prevent improvements: FAT32, NLS,
> LFN-aware utils, etc., things MS-DOS 6.22 never had. I mean, last I
> checked FreeDOS reported DOS version 7.10 (as opposed to FD beta 8 or
> DR-DOS or RxDOS).

You're calling LFN (the way DOS implemented it) and FAT32 improvements? Not only that, but improvements that somehow push DOS towards being competition for other OSes? Oh please...

> You're calling LFN (the way DOS implemented it) and FAT32 improvements?
> Not only that, but improvements that somehow push DOS towards being
> competition for other OSes? Oh please...

The MS implementation of LFNs is an ugly kludge, but it does solve the problem. FAT32 allows using of large hard drives (and lately, USB drives). Of course, DOS (one of the oldest operating systems still in use) can never catch up the modern operating systems. But it has a special charm, fascination. Don't you think so?

> READ: "Much easier to make software that can destroy your data and crash
> your PC in DOS."

Actually the purpose of their utilities is exactly that - to access the drive in the lowest possible level, destroying your data.

Frankly, I can't stand your blatant bad attitude towards DOS. It's like you shoot bullets in my chest. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

> Frankly, I can't stand your blatant bad attitude towards DOS. It's like
> you shoot bullets in my chest.
> Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

The problem is that you take it personally and have some unusual personal/emotional attachment to DOS --- taking offense to everything. It's not a "blatant bad attitude" --- it's that I am aware of the serious flaws in the OS. I don't pretend they're not there, that they're minor, or that DOS is somehow better than the other OSes available.

Yes DOS has its own "charm" - it's a part of history - a part of my own personal history in learning to use PCs, learning to program, etc. That's not being argued.

> The problem is that you take it personally and have some unusual
> personal/emotional attachment to DOS --- taking offense to everything.

It's easy to explain. If DOS is the only operating system for which you've written programs (except some small programs for Unix/Linux), and when this lasts many years (without any wish or ability to adapt to the rapid changes!), such emotional reaction is explainable. It's like putting a finger in the wound.

> It's not a "blatant bad attitude" --- it's that I am aware of the serious
> flaws in the OS. I don't pretend they're not there, that they're minor,
> or that DOS is somehow better than the other OSes available.

Neither do I claim these things.

> Yes DOS has its own "charm" - it's a part of history - a part of my own
> personal history in learning to use PCs, learning to program, etc. That's
> not being argued.

Well said. It's the same in my case, but it continues. I've turned myself from a programmer into a paleoprogrammer in just a couple of decades. Unintentionally! But in my opinion only supermen can learn to program for Windows and Mac OS X...

> Well said. It's the same in my case, but it continues. I've turned myself
> from a programmer into a paleoprogrammer in just a couple of decades.
> Unintentionally! But in my opinion only supermen can learn to program for
> Windows and Mac OS X...

They're even easier than DOS in a lot of ways - just have to let go of the reins a bit. Maybe try to program for a different OS than those two though... :)

I don't understand why you insist so much on this topic of DOS inferority and obsoleteness. I'm sure that people here are using modern OS-es besides DOS and they know very well their advantages. Considering this fact, you don't bring anything new and you are waisting your time. However, I am very curious to know what provoked you this obsessive attitude. Perhaps:

1). You received a revelation and now you are a preacher who tries to convince others until the end about the truth he has found.

2). You consider that there must be allways purely pragmatic reasons for using a specific OS and you think that those who use the OS for other reasons are ignorants who must be enlightened by the superior power of your pragmatical reasoning.

3). It's very hard for you to bury your past and you need some help to do this, but the help hasn't yet come.

Rather than being a clueless moron - why don't you try reading the thread before making assumptions?