sl197009@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Chima Echeruo) (05/25/90)
I have used windows /286 and found it's tasking of DOS programs to be wretched compared to WIN 386. I am told that WIN /386 does that by using the virtual 86 mode (not the 32 bit protected mode). The new windows 3.0 claims to run under the protected mode of the 286 processor. I would like to know if it runs completely in protected mode and if it multitasks programs using the full powers of "protected mode" including virtualization of memory/screen, memory protection, 16MB of address space, virtual memory (386), HUGE segments (386), memory protection and task management (286 & 386). It is my impression that even though users will sufer from being unable to run the average DOS program, owners of 286 systems can finally make use of all those features of the 286 which no DOS operating enviroment exploit. OS/2 claims to multitask but it requires too much hardware investment and it has NO compatibility with existing DOS programming princples. Will it be possible for plain DOS programs to multitask under 286 prot-mode if the authors make trivial changes to their source code - stop findling with segments etc.. How does the 386 Enhanced mode version of WIN 3.0 work? Does it still cling to 16 bit pointers and segments? How does it fare performance-wise with OS/2? Does microsoft have any plans to introduce a version of BASIC for windows? I hope they do. ------------- Chima Echeruo sl197009@silver.ucs.indiana.edu -------------------------------