Hi, On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 5:26 PM, C. Masloch <c...@bttr-software.de> wrote: > > In x86 Windows NT, 16-bit subsystems known as NTVDM and WOW are enabled by > default, but they seem to be separated more clearly from the main (32-bit) > system.
NT was supposedly designed to be portable (and 32-bit, i.e. no "real" DOS) from the ground up, headed by Dave Cutler, former VMS dude. It ran on various architectures initially, but that later wound down to only x86 and Itanium and later x86-64, probably due to economic and marketing reasons. NTVDM was one of many subsystems (OS/2, POSIX, etc) that were supposed to be supported, but obviously it bitrotted quite badly over the years and had many bugs unfixed and even regressions. Honestly, MS actually claims VirtualPC (and the associated "WinXP Mode") for 64-bit is too wimpy for home users, i.e. no decent graphics support, hence it's only available to business licenses and such. (Plus it doubles your hardware requirements.) Or maybe they expect us to migrate to Hyper-V in Win8 (64-bit), who knows. Clearly they have little interest in DOS or Win16 or OS/2 compatibility. They don't want to make the same "mistake" (eh?) that OS/2 did, being too compatible (with DOS and Win16) for its own survival. (Yes, eCS still exists but in limited form, and it's not chiefly supported by IBM since a long time.) They do nowadays support C++ and HTML5 and Javascript as first-class citizens, but it's clear that others are more preferred (C# and pals). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
