Message-ID: <19970206144517.QO43890@hagbard.demon.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 14:45:17 +0000
From: Dave Pearson <davep AT hagbard DOT demon DOT co DOT uk>
To: OPENDOS AT mail DOT tacoma DOT net
Subject: Re: [opendos] COMMAND.COM enhancement
References: <01IF34DWTGTE8ZOP0K AT cc DOT usu DOT edu>
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In-Reply-To: <01IF34DWTGTE8ZOP0K@cc.usu.edu>; from Roger Ivie on Feb 6, 1997 06:46:10 -0600
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Roger Ivie writes:
> OK, I've been thinking about it and I finally have my objections to
> modifying COMMAND.COM so that it does direct screen writes down to a
> few simple statements. Here goes:

What I fail to understand is why so many people seem to totally ignore
one important aspect of what was proposed. IT'S AN OPTION!!! That is,
option, as in optional, as in, it's not the only choice.

> Why is it that when we're speaking of Linux, it's A Good Thing to
> have device independence, yet when we're speaking of DOS it's
> suddenly A Good Thing for every program to lug around half a dozen
> video drivers?

There is Linux software that isn't device independent. Some software
will run only on the console. Try running console DooM via a telnet
session and see how far you get. And where do you get the idea that to
write directly to the screen you need "half a dozen video drivers"?
Examples please.

> If you want to improve the performance of OpenDOS screen writes, put
> the improvement where it belongs: in the console device driver.

One other thing to remember is this. Dos is Dos is Dos. At the end of
the day you'll still be running Dos software, and *lots* of that
software (including software I've written myself) writes directly to
screen memory for extra speed. You can worry about COMMAND.COM as much
as you like (and remember, direct screen writes would be optional),
but that won't change the status quo when it comes to Dos software.

Direct screen writes are/were considered a good thing when it came to
the speed of your Dos application, why should making this an option in
something like COMMAND.COM be such a problem.

Personally I'd not be interested in having COMMAND.COM do that, I'm
happy with the way things are, but, an option is an option. You might
use it, I might not, it's an option.

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