Mail Archives: opendos/1997/02/03/09:38:01
bartosz AT bielbit DOT bielsko DOT pl wrote:
> chambersb AT juno DOT com
>
> > Question:
> >
> > OpenDOS is for x86 processors, right?
> > You're not going to break things by inserting a little ASM code - >
>
> Maybe we can use some 386, 486, 586 or MMX specyfic opcodes inside
> Open DOS. Executables will be smaller and faster but all machines
> with less than (386...MMX) could be dropped into trash.
There would be no benefit in using 386 (or higher) instructions. All
existing DOS apps expect to use a 16-bit operating system, so even if
the app is 32-bit internally (such as those compiled with DJGPP), it
still has to go 16-bit for talking to device drivers - such as sound
cards, CDs, hard disks, and for allocating memory. If you rewrote
these as 32-bit code, you would still have to provide 16-bit
emulations of them, just like Win95 does. And you would get the same
code-bloat and horrendous number of bugs as Win95.
Anyway, the performance advantage would not be noticeable. You spend
very little productive time at the command prompt, so to gain a
performance increase from going 32-bit, you would either have to
rewrite all your APPS to be 32-bit, or be the demon-batch-coder-
from-hell and do all your work in COMMAND.COM.
-- David Cantrell, http://www.eimages.co.uk/users/davidc/
Power is both corrupting and dangerous when unchallenged and
concentrated in the hands of the majority. Voices of tolerance
and compassion are easily drowned.
-- Akbar S. Ahmed
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