Isaac_K_Rabinovitch@cup.portal.com (12/06/87)
simrin@mis.ucsf.edu (Steve Simrin) writes: ->In article <1189@homxb.UUCP> mr@homxb.UUCP (mark) writes: ->> ->>I suspect that DOS 3.4 will fix the 640K [screwup]. (not 3.3) ->> -> ->I don't think so. Breaking the 640k barrier is one of the 2 big ->features of OS/2 (multitasking being the other). If they fix DOS, it will ->cut the sales of OS/2 significantly. I'd suggest a less cold-blooded motive: any such change to DOS for the 80286 would render a lot of 8088/6 applications programs nonfunctional. That's the big problem with DOS: so much is done by individual application programs that ought to be done in system software. Aside from the immoral duplication of effort, this means that you can't do some improvements in the system software without obsoleting a lot of application software. Modularity! as Woody Allen used to say. Incidentally, there are programs that can use AT Extended memory. I own two. The first is Framework II, which comes with various driver modules for "Extened Memory" on AT Extended Memory (which they call "memory past 640K on the motherboard), Expanded Memory, or disk. I've tried out two of these (I don't have Expanded Memory) and the drivers are painfully inefficient and won't run if you start FW with less than 1/2 meg of normal memory available, but they do come in handy when you run just over FW's normal memory limits. I suspect these drivers would work very well if rewritten by someone who knew paging algorithms; but this is probably not worth doing, given FW's marginal usability. The second is TI's implementation of the Scheme language. I'm not very good at this kind of programming yet, but I get the impression TI Scheme's use of Extended Memory is pretty robust. Not terribly suprising that a LISP implementor would be good at memory managment! What would save the day: somebody writing a generic Extended Memory driver and selling it to various application programmers for inclusion in their products. Such a driver could even be made to work on XTs, paging to disk instead of memory. But I suppose that with all the focus on Expanded Memory schemes, this is unlikely to happen. I'll probably get Expanded Memory myself, especially if I go to a multitasking system (like DesqView) that uses it. Isaac Rabinovitch Disclaimer: Just because I think you're wrong, doesn't mean I don't think you're a fun person! :-)
garnett@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Roger Garnett) (12/08/87)
In article <1816@cup.portal.com> Isaac_K_Rabinovitch@cup.portal.com writes: >simrin@mis.ucsf.edu (Steve Simrin) writes: >->In article <1189@homxb.UUCP> mr@homxb.UUCP (mark) writes: >->> >->>I suspect that DOS 3.4 will fix the 640K [screwup]. (not 3.3) >->> >-> >->I don't think so. Breaking the 640k barrier is one of the 2 big >->features of OS/2 (multitasking being the other). If they fix DOS, it will >->cut the sales of OS/2 significantly. well, its not a ram fix, but, Compaq DOS 3.31 breaks the 32M disk partition limit. This feature should appear in MS DOS 3.4. (from PC Week, Dec 1) So... mayby we'll all get lucky and get more Ram too. okbye
heather@blia.BLI.COM (Heather Mackinnon) (12/09/87)
In article <1816@cup.portal.com>, Isaac_K_Rabinovitch@cup.portal.com writes: > simrin@mis.ucsf.edu (Steve Simrin) writes: > ->In article <1189@homxb.UUCP> mr@homxb.UUCP (mark) writes: > ->> > ->>I suspect that DOS 3.4 will fix the 640K [screwup]. (not 3.3) > ->> > -> > ->I don't think so. Breaking the 640k barrier is one of the 2 big > ->features of OS/2 (multitasking being the other). If they fix DOS, it will > ->cut the sales of OS/2 significantly. I talked to Microsoft in an effort to discover when the mythical DOS 3.4 will be released. They told me that there will be no further versions of DOS ever. I mentioned the articles in PC Week and Microsoft said - how shall I put this diplomatically? - that the columnist was misinformed. That makes sense to me. Microsoft has put all of their eggs into OS/2's basket and they aren't about to let DOS upgrades erode the OS/2 market. Heather Mackinnon Britton-Lee, Inc.
zinzow@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (12/12/87)
Regarding Dos 3.4, it is certainly strange to hear all these conflicting reports. I would guess that the IBM Dos 3.3 Tech Ref. is the last because no more fundamental changes are going into Dos with OS/2 out now. However, the official (at least according to ASKINFO, IBM's tech. support) word is that there will be another release of Dos to fix some of the bugs in 3.3. Perhaps it will only be another update, probably 3.31 or something.
ward@cfa.harvard.EDU (Steve Ward) (12/14/87)
In article <45900094@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>, zinzow@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes: > > Regarding Dos 3.4, it is certainly strange to hear all these conflicting > reports. I would guess that the IBM Dos 3.3 Tech Ref. is the last because > no more fundamental changes are going into Dos with OS/2 out now. However, > the official (at least according to ASKINFO, IBM's tech. support) word is > that there will be another release of Dos to fix some of the bugs in 3.3. > Perhaps it will only be another update, probably 3.31 or something. Actually, version 3.4 looks very likely and will have Desqview-like expanded memory and limited multitasking support. Rumor has it that the Desqview product popularity and excellent functionality has forced Microsoft to come out with these additions themselves. For a more specific idea of what these additions will be, get a Desqview product brochure. Basically, via EMS4.0 memory, the added DOS features will support task swapping and memory swapping so that multiple programs can be memory resident within a much larger memory space and so that existing programs that are memory hogs (CAD/CAE, for example) will have huge memory available, all transparent to programs, meaning all existing applications should take advantage of the new features transparently, without program changes -- the programs will not have to know anything about the extended memory. Time will tell, as all of this is rumor, but I have seen it all quoted from Microsoft sources in print several times. Of course, Shirley McClaine gets a lot of print, too. :-)
mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (12/20/87)
> > Regarding Dos 3.4, it is certainly strange to hear all these conflicting > reports. I would guess that the IBM Dos 3.3 Tech Ref. is the last because > no more fundamental changes are going into Dos with OS/2 out now. However, > the official (at least according to ASKINFO, IBM's tech. support) word is > that there will be another release of Dos to fix some of the bugs in 3.3. > Perhaps it will only be another update, probably 3.31 or something. Just remember what Microsoft said about Windows: Any program that runs in Windows will run on our new multitasking DOS. Then they announced OS/2, whose windows aren't Microsoft Windows, if you get the meaning. They will just announce DOS 3.4 and call it something else.
boneill@hawk.CS.ULowell.Edu (Debugger) (12/22/87)
In article <45900100@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes: > > >Just remember what Microsoft said about Windows: Any program that runs >in Windows will run on our new multitasking DOS. Then they announced >OS/2, whose windows aren't Microsoft Windows, if you get the meaning. >They will just announce DOS 3.4 and call it something else. I just read in a book given to me for Christmas (thanks, Jeff) that DOS 4.0 is to be a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system for the PC. It is not a DOS reference (it's a book on Assembly Language) but is was published fairly recently. ============================================================================ Brian O'Neill University of Lowell boneill@hawk.cs.ulowell.edu "There can be no justice so long as laws are absolute." Captain Jean-Luc Picard - ST:TNG "Justice"