Thanks, Liam, for your insightful and realistic considerations. I can't object, but would bring in my argument.
I know it might sound kind of anti-progressive or even silly, to argue with »slowing down« things. »Multi Tasking« is (was?) a lie. It isn’t real for us humans in a good sense. Single user, single task - in 2024! Refering to prose text work – just to not confound with other computer uses! - actions as handling single files through a text-UI without other stuff going on, gives (me) more focus to the contents of the files. Lesser stuff, lesser resources. We need to shrink, not to grow! Productivity doesn’t necessarily means quantity or speed. That is why. That is why I am also interested in Coding for DOS [2]. Even »Dos days« gone, to-day we can use *another* computer, connected to internet, to look up stuff, consult documentation, send Email or render markdown files to pdf and print them out on USB printers without going down the rabbit hole making it all work on a DOS machine. Communication between uses an USB Stick. No problem to read pure ASCII encoded textfiles (cp 858, OEM, DOS Latin 1 etc) on MacOs or Windows. Done. Todays all-purpose everyday industry standard »computers« and »os«-es, also peripheries are produced with a general usage in mind: be everybody's darling. And are much about marketing and selling, and observing, sending user data back and forth without my knowledge. I don’t get into AI quirk.[3] Usability? USB-Plug-and—Play alone isn’t usability. How to get your text into a computer… nothing comes close to old style typing on a keyboard [1]… break the boundaries of a Computer as a gigantic calculator… or so Thanks, will check on OBERON! 4000 line? How many lines has FREE DOS? Does someone know? Is Freedos written in C or in Assembly? -Thomas NB: [1] @Keyboard: Think about your hints to contemporary OS: The keyboards often still carry »SCRL LOCK« or »Break« keys which aren’t doing much today. I never use a backslash, tilde, or many other characters, but I often use the »guillemets« (you see, I have the German version, as the US English needs to be different) and so on. So [2] @»Text editor« project idea: emulate the TYPWRITER-with-»PAGE« Metaphore: One screen-page = one file = one page. No moving up or down. Operating with »Page Numbers«, no scrolling down or up, but browsing *horizontally* left or right through numbered screen-pages (30 lines, 60 characters), etc. ouch: -> I don’t know at the moment, how to auto-save auto-numbered files, but I might find out. [3] In my collection of DOS Texteditors is one, flew by me, which praises itself to use AI (like 1990 or so…) Haven tried that one… IA without internet … ? hm > On 17.03.2024, at 12:25, Liam Proven via Freedos-user > <freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > > On Fri, 15 Mar 2024 at 23:06, Thomas Cornelius Desi <t...@mttw.at> wrote: >> >> That is the main reason: smaller and… simpler. > > There are good reasons that DOS went away some 35 years ago. It has > its uses but not being able to flip to another window or another > screen to consult documentation, or try something out, or look it up > online, is a *massive* handicap. > > If you wanted to develop _for_ DOS you would be better in a VM and > using the host OS. > >> The adjective »older« might technically become a problem for a wider >> audience. > > So? > >> I don’t know of any OS that is as small as DOS. Isn’t it? > > Many of them, yes, and they are all more capable. > > Oberon's core OS is some 4000 lines of code: that is a complete > multitasking OS with a tiled windowing user interface, an editor and a > compiler. > > https://www.projectoberon.net/ > > One of its successors is A2, which is Internet-capable, with email, > chat, a browser, etc. The core OS is 8000 lines of code. > > https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Oberon/A2 > > For both of these, there is a native PC version and it also runs on > DOS, Windows, MacOS, Linux and other systems. > > If you have a Raspberry Pi, the core of RISC OS is 6MB of code. That's > the kernel, the GUI, the desktop, the text editor, image viewer, > BASIC, and so on. It's a multitasking internet-capable GUI OS with one > of the best and fastest BASICs ever. > > https://www.riscosdev.com/direct/ > > I like DOS. I use DOS. But I am also realistic about DOS. If you want > to learn, today, almost anything else is better. > > -- > Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven > Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com > Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven > IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 > Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 > > > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
