Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 16:59:25 -0500 (CDT) From: "Colin W. Glenn" Reply-To: "Colin W. Glenn" To: Laurent Dei-Cas cc: opendos AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: 1 question about the future of OpenDos In-Reply-To: <199704111202.IAA01284@delorie.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 11 Apr 1997, Laurent Dei-Cas wrote: > I'm a journalist in "01 Informatique" a weekly french newspaper on > computer science. I'm writing a paper on OpenDos and for that purpose > could you anwser this question: > - what do you think of OpenDos ? (i-e will you use it ? In > which kind of projects ? Do you know a lot of developers who will use it ?) What do I think, it's great! Yes I will use it, just as soon as I can get it. Especially when the sources are made available. Then I will have available a OS with which I can custom tailor to whatever project happens to be bubbling in my head, having the sources available means I will be able to rom-boot a board and have it preconfigured to do the task it was designed to do. To top that, by having the sources at hand, it will be possible to create a ibm-dos atmosphere using a different processor as the cpu, the ideas are astonishing, an dos interface on a z80 machine would mean that the operator would not have to learn a different OS whenever switching stations. Matter of fact, the interface could be completely hidden under a 'real' button board, writing a dos based program you could use a terminal to set the system up, once programmed, you could do away with the keyboard and monitor. Many people still feel intimidated by the keyboard but when you use simple buttons, they can operate with a level of proficency not seen when presented with a keyboard. Face it, computers should make life easier, not more complex. Which would you rather do? Type in, 'toast bread until lightly brown', or push a button marked such?