From: jim@n5ial.chi.il.us (Jim Graham)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Is dos 6.0 gonna multitask? Or have no memory barrier 
Distribution: world
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 17:52:12 GMT
Organization: Me? Organized? Hah! :-)

In article <1992Nov9.195738.10020@newstand.syr.edu>
amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu writes:

> In article <5575@krafla.rhi.hi.is> einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason)
> writes:

>> How long will the DOS users be led as a donkey to the water???   .,..
>> I mean, DOS is a single tasking, single user, program loader.    ....
>> I "Love it" when I'm running a program under DOS on a machine that has (say
>> 4MB) and getting the error message: Not enough memory (knowing that that
>> memory came from the drasted 640k memory pool.)  When I _know_ that there
>> are at least 3MB more memory available.

> If DOS pains you so much, why don't you drop this newsgroup.  Or
> alternately, when Einar.OS is available, drop us all a line.

yes, really nice way to address the points he makes...all of which, btw,
are perfectly valid complaints!  if we all evaded issues like that,
instead of addressing them, we'd still be back in the stone age.

look, each time a new version of dos comes out, we sit here hoping it
will fix the old problems.  each time, it doesn't.  his point is valid.
his arguments are valid.  the problems he's seeing and describing are,
unfortunately, real, and are not being addressed by the various makers
of dos.

sure, you can get DESQview, but even DESQview is limited in just how
much it can do (it doesn't seem to be able to mix upper and lower memory
to provide more memory to one program, for example --- if you have 256k
main memory free, and 256k extended/expanded/whatever memory free, you
can't open a shell with 512k).  it's a lot better (relative to dos
products) than anything else I've seen/heard of, but still....  and
that's not the OS doing it --- that's a third-party product, which means
you have to spend still more $$$ on it.

> Maybe this guy should throw away his $ 200 AT,

$200, eh?  hmmm...even an el cheapo 16 MHz 286 runs more like 2 or 3
times that (new, w/ hard disk, VGA, etc. --- perhaps not the packaging
you meant, though).  even then, try getting a 386 or a 486 for $200.
if you do, let me know --- I'll be next in line.  I could use a second
machine sometimes.  one could be for games, with the sound board, etc.,
and the other could be for serious work...hey, for $200 for a complete
286 (which can then be upgraded to a 386 for even less $$$), that's not
bad.  what size hard disk would you say this comes with?  just a 40Meg?
or bigger?

or could it be that you're not referring to a complete system, but
rather, either just the motherboard, or the main CPU with nothing
else (perhaps one floppy drive)?

I'm truly curious here, not intending to be sarcastic --- if prices have
collapsed that much on the low-end stuff, I'm going to the store to take
care of some of the problems I have (lack of interrupts for the serial
ports I need to add).

> and buy a new Sparc IPX and
> SoftPC, for about $ 10,000 he can almost replace it just perfectly.

actually, I am going to be looking into something similar after I finish
the upcoming move back down South....  I'm going to be looking for cheap
(read, $200 or less) UNIX clones for the 386, and seeing if any of them
have a dos emulation for when I need to use the ton of stuff I've built
up (and built, period) for dos.

I've even seen one person mention that Linux (which is free) has a dos
emulator, though I never saw anything like that (and never really
asked...yet).

   --jim

--
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