Message-Id: <199702060027.BAA19075@math.amu.edu.pl> Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "Mark Habersack" Organization: What? (Poznan, Poland) To: mharris AT blackwidow DOT saultc DOT on DOT ca Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 01:26:31 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: [opendos] OpenDOS + Win95 w/FAT32? Reply-to: grendel AT ananke DOT amu DOT edu DOT pl CC: dg AT dcs DOT st-and DOT ac DOT uk, OpenDOS Mailing List References: <199702022234 DOT XAA13954 AT math DOT amu DOT edu DOT pl> In-reply-to: Sender: owner-opendos AT mail DOT tacoma DOT net Precedence: bulk Once upon a time (on 5 Feb 97 at 14:06) mharris AT blackwidow DOT saultc DOT on. said: > > on the file system. In fact, DOS wasn't meant to be a multi-FS OS, so no > > programmer wrote his *DOS* app with that in mind. And you cannot require > > all the users change their beloved programs (if it's possible at all) just > > because we changed the root FS. > > Since programs that are FS specific don't make sense on other > FS's then there is no need for them. For example. Norton Disk Still, you can't expect every user to know that. Remember that programers are just a small part of the computer users community. What about all those ladies in banks, post offices, etc? (no offense!) > Doctor. If you ran that on an ext2 drive, not only would you get > errors from NDD, but it would't work either. There would be no > need for NDD either. Unless of course symantec released NU for > ext2. You're kidding, right? ;-) Symantec for *free* system? heh,heh - and where's the money? ;-)) > > DEVICE="C:\System Folder\OpenDOS\Memory Manager" > > DEVICEHIGH="C:\System Folder\OpenDOS\FAT16 Driver" > > ICK!!!!! Filenames with spaces in them are annoying!!!! Also, > just because there ARE LFN's (or will be), it doesn't mean that > they SHOULD be used all of the time! ie > > C:\BIN, C:\SYS\DOS\FAT, C:\SYS\DOS\MM > > These names are good enough. Who want's a 10k PATH? Who wants You're right, LFNs are good for archive names and documents or directories - system util/drivers names should be as short as possible. > > > INSTALL="C:\System Folder\OpenDOS\Disk Cache Driver" 1024 16384 > > Don't you think it's a bit wasteful to load all the drivers beforehand? A > > utility to mount/unmount the new FS should be created - just like in Unix. > > Rather, one should have the choice. In Linux, I've got minix, > ext2, MSDOS, UMSDOS, compiled INTO the kernel, and VFAT, ISO9660, > and others compiled as loadable modules. This way I can choose > what I think is important. Hmm... I think you're right. But the default for the system dist should be: one FS compiled into the kernel, all the others as loadable modules (again, for *users* not programmers) > > a) Yes, that's right. The only IFS documentation I know of is in the Ralph > > Brown's Interrupt List, and it's IMHO insufficient to write an IFS driver. > > It's easier to do that with Win95 as the VxD IFS interface is clearly > > documented, but who wants (of us ;-)) to help improving an M$ product? ;-) > > Not me! A new interface is needed. Vivat! > C or ASM is fine. I personally would prefer that DOS code is > written in ASM as much as possible though. Reason: SIZE!!!!! I Right, ASM is required here. After all we don't have to think about porting the system to other HW platforms, do we? > have a 19k mouse driver. My friend's mouse driver is 9k. They > are both dated from the same time. Why is mine 19k? Probably > because it is written in C! (It is, I've examined it's memory > wastage in memory with debug). Where's the golden art of writing big apps in assembler...? ******************************************************** For when it comes down to it there's no use trying to pretend. For when it comes down to there's no one really left to blame - blame it on me, you can blame it on me We're just sugar mice on the rain. ---- Visit http://ananke.amu.edu.pl/~grendel