From: lachlan@dmp.csiro.au (Lachlan Cranswick)
Subject: Gates Interview - 640k Limit
Organization: CSIRO Division of Mineral Products, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 05:47:15 GMT

rwh@moose.cccs.umn.edu (RICHARD HOFFBECK) writes:

>In article <1992Dec11.030952.12486@dmp.csiro.au>, lachlan@dmp.csiro.au (Lachlan Cranswick) writes:

[stuff deleted]

>I tried Windows 3.0 on a 386/16 and it was barely usable but Windows 3.1
>has been doing just fine.  For about 1.5 Mb of disk space I got a faster
>product (I believe it also consumes less memory) with OLE, Truetype font
>support and much more stable network support.  Not bad for about $5
>worth of disk space.

Have you tried running Windows with your machine stuffed
full of network drivers high and low giving you only
~500k of memory.  Both my work and home PC's are 486-33s.
My "vanilla" home machine runs windows quite fast; however, with
all the drivers, excluded memory etc, my work machine 
runs windows only half to a third as fast.  The work machine also
has 12 Meg more RAM (20Meg) but identical Tseng labs VGA cards.



>> Personally, I would like to flame the 640k limitation of
>> DOS rather than what Gates is waffling on about.  This is
>> why I am trying to goto OS/2.  I know it needs heaps of disk
>> space, but it has a reputation of running applications fast,
>> and giving me all my memory.  if anyone knows different
>> please say so.  

>What exactly do you mean by giving you 'all of your memory'?  Windows
>doesn't place any significant limit on memory usage for Windows software.
>Its my understanding that any compatible memory extender can be used
>withing a DOS window to provide memory past 640K. OS/2 isn't going to
>give your DOS applications more than 640K within a DOS window; afterall,
>the underlying binary was compiled for the 20-bit address space and the
>OS can't change that. 

The 640k limit for DOS isn't just about 
the maximum memory DOS applications
will run in but how much of the 640k memory you can "get"
to run your applications in.                           

On a vanilla machine you can get around 620k of application memory.
Start adding a network in and you might be lucky to get
400 to 500k of application memory.  You can start loading TSR's
high but working out the order they are most stable
in can take quite a few months and your system can
still be flakey.     

While the "present" DOS apps may be limited to the 640k
limit, is their any technical reason why the DOS kernel and
TSRs "have" to be limited to either the first 640k
or polluting system the area between 640k and 1 Meg?

You mention Windows being the cure for these problems.
But are you forgetting the main advantage of DOS
is its wide application base.  One problem at the moment
is that quite a few really good DOS apps are being wrecked
when transferred to windows (Lotus Freelance is a good
example).  Thus users will still want to use
DOS apps even if there is a Windows equivalent.

While this may only be a short term problem
are you forgetting the most important class of
softare  that is going strong in DOS and not
being ported to windows.

- You must know the prime reason for the existance of the PC -

- which by your naive support for the forces of darkness -

- may now be threatened?

(WARNING - I KNOW THE FOLLOWING IS PRETTY STUPID - BUT THAT HAS NEVER
STOPPED ME BEFORE)

What is the most important use of the PC?  What type of
software is so important that no HOME PC
can be without it - 

- YES THE GAMES!!!           

Lets not get lost with this trivial work-related guff, we all
know its the games that count.  (You want to do serious stuff?
Haven't you heard of UNIX?)

Do you see Origin, Sierra and Lucas Films Games porting
their latest stuff to Windows?  At the moment, the typical
386-SX with 1 to 2 Meg of RAM, and 40Meg Hard-disk can  run these
games with DOS.  If DOS is well and truely dumped in the 
gutter for Windows, what happens to everyone's 1 to 2 GIG
home archive of DOS games.  PC GAMES 
are the home PC's (and work PC?) equivalent of the 
OZONE layer.  Yet you're saying we should go like lambs to
the slaughter and blindly get addicted to the CFC like MS Windows.  

Running DOS apps in Windows slows them down quite
visably.   What would it be like if MS abandoned DOS
all together for Windows and tried to force all apps
to be Windows based.  Would the big (and small)
games companies be justified financially in spending
the huge cost changing their well developed DOS game
engines to Windows?  The generic home PC is not
a 486 with 16Meg of RAM and 200 Meg of hard-disk.

Would you put an OS on your system that meant you had
to junk your DOS games in the garbage - that you couldn't
buy the new "major" games that are being released.

IBM has brains with OS/2.  They know the really
important programs have to run in DOS.  If Wing
Commander V? is too slow in OS/2, a dual boot
will have it running nicely under DOS.

Also:-
If Windows for DOS is here to stay, why should games
companies bother making both a Windows and a DOS
version.  All PCs with Windows 3.1 run DOS but not visa-versa.
And that is especially so on HOME PCs.               

The Summary to all of this (and hopefully the point as well)
is that DOS needs to be supported and radically improved.  It is no 
good to say Windows will fix everything as this is clearly
not the case.  The REALLY important PC programs (past/present and
future) have/are being made for DOS.


Yo!! -  Lachlan.

A friendly piece of advice for all you DOS-bashing Windows freaks:-

If you lot don't stop behaving like sheep -
before you know it, you'll all be sold off to lonely New Zealand men.

DISCLAIMERS:- (Before sending hate mail - please look up the 
Concise Oxford Dictionary definition of Sarcasm)

These are my own stupid opinions.  I am not a human being -  
I am a networked xt server with intermittent faults.
"Please don't throw me off this high building - I know
I'm slow, but I want to live!!"

-- 
  Lachlan Cranswick  -  CSIRO             _--_|\  lachlan@dmp.CSIRO.AU
  Division of Mineral Products           /      \ tel +61 3 647 0367
  PO Box 124, Port Melbourne 3207        \_.--._/ fax +61 3 646 3223
  AUSTRALIA                                    v