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. > So, alas, my fears stand. Justifiably. ______ Dennis https://plus.google.com/u/0/105128793974319004519 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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
