Mail Archives: djgpp/1997/09/16/03:01:05
This is just daydreaming, but .....
The things that I find really inadequate about DOS as it is are:
1. No pre-emptive multi-tasking.
2. Complicated and kludgy memory management, with little protection.
3. 8.3 format file names.
Once upon a time, there was a little computer called the Atari ST,
and it was good, for a while. But it lacked true multitasking,
and probably a few other technical thingies. One day, there came along
a guy called Eric Smith, and he decided to make a pre-emptive
OS kernel that would also run as many ST applications as possible,
and he did, and it was good.
I have always wished for something like that for the PC. It would have
the following properties:
1. It would be free, freely redistributable, hackable, etc. (GPL, probably).
2. It would be a sort of microkernel, providing message passing, hardware
access arbitration, resource multiplexing, hardware abstraction, etc.
3. It would be fast and small.
4. It would be backward compatible with DOS to the greatest degree
possible.
5. When it boots, it would run CONFIG.SYS, and then create an array of
virtual DOS machines, each running on a separate virtual console,
accessable by using the ALTed function keys. In each console, the first
time the user switched to it, it would start a command shell (user's
choice as to which one, 4DOS is my preference), which would start
by running all the normal batch files.
6. Each program could think that it had the machine all to itself,
through the hardware abstraction mechanism, while allowing new programs
that were written for it to access more advanced features, like
communication between the programs running on the different virtual
machines.
7. It would provide pre-emptive multitasking.
8. It would provide real pipes, background processing, job control,
etc. for shells that understood these things.
9. It would be able to access and boot from FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, and
one more file system that would provide long, case-sensitive file
names.
10. The graphics hardware would be abstracted as in the General Graphics
Interface (ala Linux).
11. It would not take up a ton of disk space (which is one of the
things about linux that makes me not run it right now).
12. No attempt would be made to make it run on older than 386 generation
processors.
13. It would be developed by hundreds of hackers around the globe,
working frantically to have it running usefully in 12 months or less. :-)
This sound a lot like Linux running DOSEMU in each of its virtual consoles,
except for the FAT filesystem stuff. I have heard of MMURTL, which
uses the FAT filesystem, but does not run DOS apps (I think). I have heard
of FreeDOS and Freedows, but FreeDOS is being targeted to as early as
8088 systems, and I know next to nothing about Freedows.
Ah... daydreaming.
--
Single, white, Milwaukee-area male seeks romance with non-smoking female.
Are you caring, bright, humorous, sensuous, between 18 and 35 years old?
I am a computer programmer in my mid thirties. Turn-ons: good food,
pre-sputnik SF, roller coasters, fast computers. Turn-offs: taxes,
internet regulation. Send email if interested.
Hi, my name's Ken (Hi, Ken!), and I'm a programmer ...
I can change ... if I have to ... I guess ...
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