On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 10:54 PM, dmccunney <dennis.mccun...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 3:34 PM, Alex <alxm...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Sorry but I still don't find the above comments very reassuring, with >> regard to the future usability of (Free)DOS on new hardware. The fact >> that we will be able to run DOS in emulators/virtual machines, because >> we can no longer boot it, is no reason at all for being reassured. In >> fact, such a state of affairs is rather sad and paradoxical, and in >> such a scenario I don't even see the point of using DOS in the first >> place (apart from running DOS games). > > What *do* you see the point of using DOS in the first place being? > > If your answer is > >> To me, at least, DOS is >> something that today is still useful because it gives you control over >> the machine, it is lean and unbloated, and provides you with a simple, >> uncluttered environment. > > the question becomes "Why do you *need* to do this?" > > The answer is that generally, you *don't*. Current hardware is > increasingly faster and more powerful. In the old days you talked > directly to the hardware to squeeze the maximum performance out of > slow and limited hardware. There's no *reason* to address the > hardware directly now simply to get performance: you can talk to it > through drivers using OS calls. The hardware is more than fast > enough. > > "Lean and unbloated" is relative. One man's bloat is another's > necessary functionality. And the faster and more powerful your > hardware becomes, the less you *care* about "bloat". > > The only people who still have that sort of concerns are working in > the embedded space where they still *have* slow and limited hardware, > and are dealing with things like 8-bit microcontrollers, or dealing > with things like set top boxes or wireless routers, where the CPU is > not Intel and the limits are imposed by what you can do in the > available flash RAM. They *aren't* using DOS, because DOS doesn't run > on ARM or MIPS architectures. > >> Now, if we have to resort to using a virtual machine for running DOS, this >> frankly seems to defeat the purpose. > > *That* purpose has been unnecessary for decades. Running in a VM or > emulator still lets you *run* DOS and legacy DOS apps, which is all > you are likely to really *need* to do.
I beg to disagree. For me, at least, DOS is about the OS, not about the applications. Those matter too, but the system is my main interest, for the reasons that I outlined above. If you don't mind my asking, what is your interest in DOS then? Just for running old apps? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Better than sec? Nothing is better than sec when it comes to monitoring Big Data applications. Try Boundary one-second resolution app monitoring today. Free. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
