Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!munnari.oz.au!bruce!monu1!monu6!minyos!s907396 From: s907396@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Soon Mok) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc Subject: Re: Dumbest DOS in the World! Keywords: ms-dos, pc-dos, os Message-ID: <7738@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au> Date: 13 Jan 91 19:53:14 GMT References: <278e09fb-2433comp.ibmpc@point.UUCP> Organization: RMIT Computer Centre, Melbourne Australia. Lines: 77 akcs.bill@point.UUCP (Bill Wolff) writes: >All those who say there are no bugs in MS-DOS must not use DOS. One of I'm glad I didn't. It certainly has bugs but I haven't encountered any really serious ones. >the top of my head is changing a disk with an open file will save the old >directory to the new disk. Another problem is that most things from one Which version of MSDOS are you familiar with? I'm using MSDOS 4.01 and it seems to have taken care of this problem. I think. I tried what you described above and MSDOS gave me an "Invalid disk change" or something like that. Also floppies formatted with DOS 4.01 has a serial number which allows MSDOS to keep track of which floppies should be in which drive. >DOS version is not compatible with the next version. Yet a $120 Commodore True, external DOS commands are not compatible across different versions but what problems does that cause? Floppies formatted under different versions are still OK cept maybe with very old version such as MSDOS V1.00 >being fully compatible. I can copy whole disks or format them while >downloading or uploading from a BBS without any loss in speed at the same I can do that as well with no loss of speed as long as I don't access the floppy drive. That's because the floppy drives on an IBM takes over the whole system when it's being accessed. Is this a MSDOS fault or the design of the disk controllers? As I remember Commodore drives are smarter, even has a CPU on the disk drives itself. I'm referring to the C64 which is the only Commodore I've ever used. I also remember that C64 drives are horrendously slow. >time. Why does MS-DOS have to be so backwards and stupid? I can Ask Microsoft. Personally I think it's OK, not fantastic but adequate. If you don't like MSDOS, get DRDOS V5 or the shareware 4dos for your IBM. Or maybe UNIX if you can afford it. >editing) on a $120 Commodore at a command line, yet MS-DOS 3.3 still uses >the old 1978 CP/M type of delete back only type of editing and cost $70 >for the software alone. Speaking about CP/M, MS-DOS doesn't even have Yep, agreed. That feature should have been incorporated into MSDOS long ago. It's only being done now with MSDOS V5.00 Well, not that much of a problem, just use DOSEDIT. >most of the power that CP/M Plus has (multiple time and date stamps, >password protection on files or disks and full line editing to name a Funny isn't it? I wonder what machines still uses CP/M. >few). Yet to top this off, MS-DOS is the biggest seller while being no >better than what was available in 78 (being the stone age days of Actually it would be more accurate to say that the IBM is the biggest seller and that by some unfortunate/fortunate coincidence(depending on your point of view) MSDOS was the default OS that was included with the IBMs. >computers). This shows how dumb most computer buyers (business buyers >mostly) really are. Buy the product with more hype and the least >functional ablilities. I hardly think that MSDOS is the limiting factor in deciding funcionality on MSDOS machines. Many business users do not even see the MSDOS command line but operate a menu/GUI driven software. As for power users like I, I don't mind the limitations of MSDOS. And since UNIX is too expensive, OS-2 hasn't enough software support, I don't have much of a choice. I think I'll wait for MSDOS V5.00 and see what it has to offer. Sounds good. Ciao, -- -----/ _ _ \-------------------------------------------------------------------- | o o | Eugene Mok s907396@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Melbourne OZ) \ ^ / Fidonet 3:633/375 ------\ o /---------------------------------------------------------------------