Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!ists!yunexus!maccs!cs4g6ag From: cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Stephen M. Dunn) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Need input for future DOS release Keywords: future DOS release Message-ID: <260AC977.24160@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca> Date: 24 Mar 90 01:12:23 GMT References: <53686@microsoft.UUCP> <2017@clyde.concordia.ca> <1990Mar22.202023.25752@seri.gov> Reply-To: cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Stephen M. Dunn) Organization: McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario Lines: 79 Before I comment on what Marshal wrote, may I point out that the original article stated quite clearly that Microsoft intends to retain full backward compatibility in DOS (obviously!) and that it's their low-end OS and is not to compete with OS/2 (okay, so the original post didn't put it in those words, but that's the idea). In article <1990Mar22.202023.25752@seri.gov> marshall@wind55.seri.gov (Marshall L. Buhl) writes: $>4) An easy, standard way to express search paths of arbitrary length (subject $> to environment space limits, of course!) $Gee, do you think we can afford a whole 1KB environment instead of 132 byte $one? Nothing like being cheap in all the wrong places. ;-) In DOS verions 3.10 (at least) and later, you can set DOS to use an environment as large as you want it (within reason). However, there are a couple of problems that people have encountered with the fact that some versions of DOS shrink the environment space to less than you've specified if you don't use it all, so perhaps future DOS versions could grow and shrink their environments according to the user's needs. $5) A decent batch language with console I/O and better branching. Also $ integer and real math. Something like Unix's case and if-else-elseif structures could be implemented without affecting backward compatibility. This would relieve the batch programmer of having to use a series of IF statements or a FOR statement with a bunch of GOTOs to implement a case, and would make batch files much easier to read. $7) A 4 GB address space. Aw, heck. Let's go for a full TB. ;-) I $ remember when 64K seems like more than anyone could ever put to use. $8) 32-bit operating system. Hooks for future 64-bit. Not likely ... this would not provide backward compatibility (or at least not with any level of reliability), and would infringe upon OS/2's territory. $10) Verified deletes. Branch deletes. Move files without copying. It's always puzzled me why the rename function call will move a file without copying anywhere on a given drive, but the DOS rename command doesn't let you do this. $12) Windows built in. This would have to be optional, since many users do not want Windows on their machines (and also would not want to pay the extra money for it); also, to allow users to use Windows/286 or /386 on their machines according to processor type, this would have to be an option. $13) A good, standard way to load/unload TSRs. Also, be able to use holes $ in RAM. The way most versions of DOS work when allocating memory is that they select the lowest chunk in memory that is large enough, so holes in RAM can already be used. (With recent versions, you can change this strategy to be either the highest chunk that is large enough, or the smallest chunk that is large enough, but I don't imagine [m]any people do this.) $16) Virtual memory management. Once again, this won't be implemented since a) it doesn't promote compatibility and b) it's the territory of OS/2. I can think of a few other Unix-like things I'd like to see added to the shell, such as the ability to input to an environment variable from stdin (which, through redirection, would allow files to be read into environment variables too), the ability to redirect stdout, a sleep command to sleep for a given time, filename completion (as in csh or tcsh), the ability to specify a "temporary" path where DOS stores intermediate files during pipes, and heavier use of expanded memory (I don't know how extensively DOS 4 uses EMS ... forgive me if it already does all it could :-). And all this just from a user's perspective ... -- Stephen M. Dunn cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca = "\nI'm only an undergraduate!!!\n"; **************************************************************************** "So sorry, I never meant to break your heart ... but you broke mine."