DOS ain't dead

GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) (Developers)

posted by Arjay, 18.03.2010, 16:31

> publisher of PC Mag (Ziff Davis) deciding in the mid 90's to contact simtel > (and mirrors) and legally ask them to remove all the PC Mag utils which
> at the time were widely available.
>
> Yes, I'm aware of that, and yes it's a little silly, considering it limits
> the usefulness, but oh well, we can't have everything, can we? :-/

:) Regarding silly... from a historical viewpoint I think "no" as back then Ziff Davis were having their PC Mag programs widely illegally copied and the existence of a dedicated "PCMAG" folder on Simtel was meaning many people were thus innocently assuming they were there legitimately making the situation even worse. Still this aside as we know PCMAG's older DOS utils then disappeared off Simtel (but obviously not from the thousands of already pressed and distributed Walnut creek SIMTEL CD-ROM's....)

So I feel it is fair to defend Ziff Davis's actions from a historical standpoint, however I would say the following is silly for "now" considering many other companies have released entire compilers and other applications:

ANSI.com - February 7, 1989 (21 years ago....)


Please select a purchase option:
1) 7.97 USD (5.21GBP / 5.83EUR) single download of ANSI.com (with license!)
2) 19.97USD for access to 140+ library of utils for 1 year including ANSI.com


So perhaps TOUCH is still in PC Mag's library after all... still I'm keeping my money thanks (having purchased most of their utils the first time around!).


> Except I never thought of readonly in that way. +R usually means (to me)
> "don't modify the file data" whereas touch only changes the file's time
> (in the file system itself).
Indeed I can understand that kind of thinking even though like you my thinking is that I would support ignoring +R or at least have an option.


> Yes, that's why I did this at the top (see below).
Doh...

> BTW, GNU touch (Coreutils, formerly Fileutils, e.g. DJGPP's FIL41B.ZIP)
Interesting comparison overview - thanks.

> FreeDOS touch is written in TASM (boo hiss ...
Hey it was good in its day :)

> but I did a temporary quick hack to NASM which I will have to polish
> up if anyone cares)
Yes, publish if quick and easy to do. If anything always helpful to have more source conversions available as it helps others to learn these things.

> best touch util is probably the one in 4DOS, but not everybody uses 4DOS,
> and it's quite a big util to use just for touching files.
Haha. I never got into 4DOS to be honest or Norton Commander focusing instead on ensuring I had the skills to still do things without any extras.

> P.S. Slightly annoying that you have to use a file handle to touch a file
> instead of a pointer to ASCIIZ, but I guess "open + touch" isn't so much
> to ask.
Could be worse... FCB's

Complete thread:

• TOUCH.COM 1.4.3 (minor fix: debug script) - Rugxulo, 02.03.2010, 01:10 (Developers)
  • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) - Rugxulo, 02.03.2010, 01:22
    • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) - Arjay, 11.03.2010, 17:09
      • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) - Rugxulo, 11.03.2010, 19:41
        • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) - Arjay, 18.03.2010, 16:31
          • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) - Rugxulo, 19.03.2010, 00:58
            • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) - Arjay, 22.03.2010, 00:40
              • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) - Rugxulo, 22.03.2010, 17:47
                • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) / Tim Paterson / DOS v3 required - Arjay, 23.03.2010, 16:25
                  • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) / Tim Paterson / DOS v3 required - Rugxulo, 23.03.2010, 16:59
                    • [deleted] - Arjay, 23.03.2010, 19:32
                      • TOUCH 1.4.4 - Rugxulo, 07.04.2010, 00:05
    • GZIPDATE.REX (uses TOUCH) - Rugxulo, 07.04.2010, 01:06