Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!killer!tness7!tness1!sugar!peter From: peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc Subject: Re: Compiling under Windows Message-ID: <2264@sugar.UUCP> Date: 7 Jul 88 01:18:03 GMT References: <152@pt1.Wichita.NCR.COM> <68600011@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX Lines: 68 In article <68600011@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>, mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes: > >I don't understand this. I'm running Intuition, which does everything that > >Windows does. I can compile and bind in 512K, using the Manx compiler, on > >a 68000. The 68000 is *not* as powerful as the 80386, even in 80286 mode. > >Does DOS compatibility really cost that much? And if so, is it worth it? > Remember that Windows is basically a second operating system. A pretty well-behaved one. I ran the original Windows in one DoubleDOS partition once. > Real Windows programs are not in the > least like DOS programs, or any other programs for that matter. As as > operating system, Windows supports NO, that's right, NO standard languages. They look pretty much like Amiga programs (or, I presume, Mac programs). > Not C, not Pascal, not Fortran, not Ada, not anything. That's because > it doesn't support normal IO. The classic "Hello World" C program > won't do anything. It is like the classic circus dancing elephant: > it's a miracle that it works at all. I seem to remember running a DOS window. It was a bit slow, but it worked. I was even able to run a non-windows terminal program in a Windows window. It was agonizingly slow, but I blamed that on the 8088. Windows on a 286 should be a different beast altogether. A terminal program doing busy-waits is a pretty nasty load on any system. > Comparing Windows to Intuition is not fair. Intuition is, correct me > if I'm wrong, the original O.S. for the Amiga, and came with it > from the start. Yes, this is all true. Now if Windows wasn't running under DOS, it would have all the advantages you list... naturally multitasking, etc... That's what I mean by the cost of DOS compatibility. The first time I saw Windows, my first reaction was "Why isn't the Mac like this?" It just seemed to need a 68000-class processor (which the '286 is close to being). It even seemed to handle DOS windows just fine. A little slow, but again that old 8088 isn't that hot. Given that it was working with an '88 it was nothing short of miraculous. What happened? > Thus all programs naturally work with it - and, again > correct me if I'm wrong, if it is multitasking, presumably the thing > was designed to do multiprogram windows from the start. Also true, but it runs shell windows with "Hello World" type programs in them just fine. Apart from the fact that Windows uses DOS, rather than emulating it using its own calls (at a cost in compatibility) there's no reason Windows couldn't do the same. > Remember > that Windows DOES work fine for programs designed for it. It is just > that 640k is not enough for serious multitasking. I'll have to remember that the next time I run Xenix-86 on an XT. Quite a serious multitasking package. With the improved drivers, it's quite a bit faster than DOS. -- -- `-_-' Peter (have you hugged your wolf today?) da Silva. -- U Mail to ...!uunet!sugar!peter, flames to /dev/null. -- "Running DOS on a '386 is like driving an Indy car to the Stop-N-Go"