wkk@cbnewsl.att.com (wesley.k.kaplow) (01/18/91)
What's wrong with MS-DOS, well lets examine what people expect an operating
system to do for them
1) Act as a program loader
2) Manage various Input and Output devices
3) Manage the use of the processor
4) Manage the use of memory
5) Free a user from having to understand all of the details about 1-4.
(this probably asks too much from any operating system)
6) Don't jump on me, I probably forgot something.
How does MS-DOS perform on the above?
1) MS-DOS will load programs to memory (if they are not too big, remember the
640K limit) and transfer control.
2) By version 4.01 most of the I/O drivers seem to work pretty reliably.
The file system has its limits, but works well.
3) Well were really single tasking (no points removed here) so MS-DOS
does o.k. here.
4) MEMORY. O.K. what can anyone say here? DOS, DOS-extenders, extended memory
expanded memory. What program will run, what won't? If I write
a program, can I allocate a large array, even if I have 8 Megabytes?
Everybody had to come up with a different way of allocating and using
memory, not to mention how TSR's, Network servers, and other usefull
goodies allocate memory.
5) Gosh? Millions are being made by consultants and magazines on advice
about how to load your system, how to configure it. What DOS-extenders
to use, how to squeeze an extra 10K of transient program space so you
can run that 612K program. This is a joke. Think of the person-hours
that have been wasted by people trying to get simple programs to operate,
that bomb saying they need more memory even though the system has
8 Mbytes.
I'm sure that I have left out alot in the above comments. If PC's are to
really become tools for the average person, then problems like these
must be addressed.
Note: Intel also has culpability in this one. After I found out how
some DOS-extenders work on 80286 machines (getting out of protected
mode by hitting a processor reset through the keyboard controller!)
that was the final chuckle. At least the new 386, 486 chips handle
"system traps" correctly, but until MS-DOS really does the job,
the world of personal computers and software will remain to be
hit or miss and crash
Wesley Kaplow
AT&T Bell Laboratories
Writting this within a 640K program area on a 80286 PC.
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