>> DOS doesn't use SATA anyways (AFAIK), only IDE compatibility mode. > > It's still much faster than the hardware, that I was using in > 1991. The HDD itself has quite large hardware cache (16 MB - > incredibly large space compared to 640 KB).
Hard-disks have come a long way. In 1994, I paid $350 for a 350-MB hard disk that as I recall had NO write cache. Now, under $100 can get me about 250-GIGABYTES with at-least a 16-MB write cache! Most "IDE commands" used in 1994 can still be used, only a few were added since then to support 48-bit LBA addressing (not 28-bit, like then). >> But actually even DOS software gets slower and bloatier over time. > > Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my writing: that pauses occur, for > example, even when I've got to save just edited autoexec.bat - then > we're talking about 2 KB (or so) text file. Not sure but my guess > is "hardware problem". Maybe not: I still use a 1986 "WordStar" editor, the only one I ever had "time to learn" well. It is VERY slow at the end of an edit, my guess being that only THEN does it "rename" my previous file with the .BAK suffix, then finishes output of my NEW file, then it deletes all its "temporary" files! Perhaps your editor does a LOT of such work, whenever you finally "output" a new edited file. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
