lennox@paris.sw.stratus.com (Craig Scott Lennox) (01/20/90)
I've decided it's time to ditch my clunky old (but reliable, and state of the art when it was bought) 4.77 MHz 8088 XT to something a bit more modern. I'm tempted to go Mac (for reasons of taste; I DON'T WANT TO START A PC-MAC WAR HERE!) but I've gotten quite used to kernel-hacking DOS. What do you think ... is it better to have a badly-designed, kludgey OS that you have the source code to, or better to have a well-designed OS whose innermost workings are a mystery. From a hacker's point of view. In the same vein ... is it preferable to hack a kludgey segmented architecture over a neatly-designed one because the former is more of a challenge? -- | Craig Scott Lennox -- Stratus Computer - Marlborough, MA | | Dyslexic Existentialism: "Is there a dog?" | | Find out what I really said -- send for your free decoder ring! |
cygnus@vax1.acs.udel.EDU (Marc Cygnus) (01/20/90)
In article <598@lectroid.sw.stratus.com> lennox@paris.sw.stratus.com (Craig Scott Lennox) writes: > <etc. deleted>... >but I've gotten quite used to kernel-hacking DOS. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > >What do you think ...is it better to have a badly-designed, kludgey OS that you ^^ >have the source code to, or better to have a well-designed OS whose innermost ^^ >workings are a mystery. From a hacker's point of view. > > <etc. deleted> ouchouch. `kernel' hacking? Dos doesn't _have_ a kernel. ...and 'OS'? Dos is most _certainly_ NOT an operating system. It's a bloody MONITOR!! :-) personally, your point i think is rather a good one. i have to work with dos quite a bit and yes, i really like being able to hack around braindamage that i can pinpoint in source. unfortunately, that's a selfish point of view, since well-designed systems keep average users (who aren't programmers and don't have the slightest inclination to ever thinking about being one) from having to deal with system level stuff. ah well. >| Craig Scott Lennox -- Stratus Computer - Marlborough, MA | >| Dyslexic Existentialism: "Is there a dog?" | >| Find out what I really said -- send for your free decoder ring! | -marcus- -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Opinions expressed above are not necessarily those of anyone in particular." `...but do YOU own a | ARPA: cygnus@vax1.acs.udel.edu homemade 6ft Tesla?' | UUCP: {yourpick}!cfg!udel!udccvax1!cygnus