Hi all.

Sorry Zen and Joviex, DOS is not dead, it is still being sold and used in a few niches. Dead is when *NO ONE* uses it.

Joviex, I don''t know about those "free" systems, but the ones I have seen require you to subscribe to a online service or something similar for a particular period of time. From my point of view, that is just another form of financing, you end up shelling out about as much money. For example, with PeoplePC (www.peoplepc.com) you end up paying almost $900 after the 3 year of $24.95 monthly payments. And even the iternet is given free (paid by advertising) so whichever way you look at it, there is no such thing as "feee" PCs.

And I agree with Tekumze, no compiler (at least in the X86 processors) can beat hand optimization. The compiler is too generic and most cases must be optimized in a too specific way. But I am not sure about processors with many registers or the new IA64.

Returning to topic, DOS is still alive, may be not doing well, but is is alive and used. By the way, at least since DOS 3.0 it has always been a 16 bit OS. All x86 (and x88) are no less than 16 bit, the catch is the data bus is 8 bits in the x88, but all of those processors (software wise) are no less than 16 bit.

About windows on top of DOS, I have read somewhere that Windows has it''s own 32 bit drivers, at least for disk I/O it has it''s own drivers, DOS is not used. I think it only uses DOS fos devices unsupported by 32 bit drivers. And denfinely DOS memory management is *NOT* used, Windows does it''s own memory management (wether it is good at it or not is something else).

Well, just my 2 cents, Topgoro.

Now we have to agree on the meaning of "dead". Why don''t we just close the post now?

By the way, I was the anonymous poster Tekumze was talking about. I just forgot to sign in.

-CobraA1

Hi all.

I agree with cobra in that we should close this, as the original question has got it''s answer, and going to a dictionary is the best way to determine the meaning of the word "dead", not here

Anyway, interesting talk.

Topgoro

Since I''ve been flaming in this mastodon of a thread a lot already, I''ll define the deadness of Dos again :

As a commercial (i.e. money making) target platform, DOS has pretty much fizzled out. No developers that I personally know of are still actively targeting DOS.

However, for certain specialised things, and certain ultra-geekdom things, DOS development might still be a nice thing;
In fact, thinking about it, learning about driver development, interrupts, and assembler programming, DOS was easier to start, and I see few alternatives on the Win32 platform. (I never did get my protected mode assembler sorted ).

Reviving DOS seems unlikely; unless there''s a way of simply booting it from CD or something, so that there are no set-up problems (DOS'' biggest gripe as far as I''m concerned ).
However, for this kind of thing, I think linux might be better, because of its more solid, and more advanced kernel;

In all, DOS is just another OS, to develop for or not develop for. If you don''t have commercial objectives, there''s nothing against it.



#pragma DWIM // Do What I Mean!
~ Mad Keith ~
**I use Software Mode**

quote:

Reviving DOS seems unlikely; unless there''s a way of simply booting it from CD or something, so that there are no set-up problems (DOS'' biggest gripe as far as I''m concerned ).
However, for this kind of thing, I think linux might be better, because of its more solid, and more advanced kernel;

Acutually, you CAN set it up to boot from a CD-ROM. Just copy the emergency boot floppy from Windows, and hope everybody knows how to set up their computer to boot from the CD-ROM . Of course, not all computers can boot from a CD. I agree with the linux part, but DOS won''t make a comeback simply because you can pop in a CD and get a prompt. That much I''m almost 100% sure can be done.

I think many of you have win9x as OS, and you shouldn''t forget that those OSs are based on DOS!

Visit our homepage: www.rarebyte.de.st

GA

That''s not really what I meant cobra - I meant using DOS as the OS for your game, in a way that the user never actually gets to see that he''s using dos.
You pop in the CD, and it boots the game - no prompt, no DOS access, just plain and simple dos-coded stuff.

You could do that with any OS as long as the bootup sequence fits on a CD, but the small, simple ones work best.


Windows based on DOS? Yes I guess 95 and 98 were to a greater extent, and NT/2000 based on the experience gained from DOS. But that still means they are all evolutions of DOS, and therefore SHOULD be better ( ahum, note that is not necessarily my own opinion , just microsofts ).


#pragma DWIM // Do What I Mean!
~ Mad Keith ~
**I use Software Mode**

You are right. WIN9X (and Windows ME) are an evolution of DOS. That''s why they contain so many problems... the''re leftoves from DOS. A Revolution is needed.

IOn a way that happened with Win NT and UP but since the NT appeared MS ran into so many dead ends with it''s code and added so many new features that it needs a revolution again. Another rewrite would surely shorten the code and make NT even more stable.

A simple evidence of NT showing old age against new features is the size of Win 2000. While WinNT had under 100MB of install files Win2000 has 300MB of them.

This is not meant as a Windows flame but more as a warning. If MS keeps piling up features on the old OS core the stability problems will surely surface, it''s just a question of time.

What Windows needs is a CLEAR, OPEN and EXPANDABLE interface so companies can make programs for them. This would benefit security and stability of the OS as Applications would be separated from the OS and not partly integrated (as it''s MS practice now). As it is it looks more like MS is making adaptations to the OS interface as they moce along without a plan (if you don''t count milking their customers a plan ). This leaves their own developers with many problems and They evidently are very good developers considering what they make out of Windows.

Bare in mind thast this is MY opinion so flames will be ignored while constructive criticism is always welcome.