Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!sugar!peter From: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: 8-bit death Message-ID: <1991Apr30.112820.2451@sugar.hackercorp.com> Date: 30 Apr 91 11:28:20 GMT References: <1991Apr27.155155.12730@marlin.jcu.edu.au> <1991Apr28.122439.13393@sugar.hackercorp.com> <1991Apr28.162045.15585@daffy.cs.wisc.edu> Organization: Sugar Land Unix -- Houston, TX Lines: 56 In article <1991Apr28.162045.15585@daffy.cs.wisc.edu> dinda@cat55.cs.wisc.edu (Peter Dinda) writes: > WRONG. I love it how these college freshmen are so bloody sure of themselves. Especially when they haven't been paying attention. > MS DOS is a 16 bit REAL MODE operating system. You may be getting > confused since something like OS/2 1.x is a 16 bit PROTECTED MODE OS, while > OS/2 2.x is a 32 bit PROTECTED MODE OS. I'm not confused, bucko. You are. Look at what you wrote: full of intel marketing terms for privileged mode, user mode, and so on. > The simplest processor that > can run MS DOS (the Intel 8088) is a 16 bit processor with an 8 bit data > bus. As far as the programming model (the only one that counts) is concerned, the 8088 is an 8-bit processor with 4 bank-select registers built in. There were companies doing operating systems for bank-selected 8-bit micros that would have blown your socks of: Cromix from Cromemco, a UNIX-like O/S on multiple bank-switched Z80s. OS/9 from Microware, still available for the Radio Shack color computer, and still a 16-bit O/S for all it's running on a 6809. > MS DOS, or for that matter, QDOS, is not a direct copy of CP/M - even > the command interpreters accept different commands. Oh, the shell defines the O/S? Look at the system calls in MS-DOS 1.x some time. Bug-for-bug compatible with CP/M. > Finally, MS DOS has now > been rewritten 4 times - pretty much elliminating any resemblence to CP/M, > even in the file system, etc. Oh? It's not an extent-based file system, with 8+3 filenames, CR/LF as the line terminator, and so on? It's not still purely single-tasking? They now provide real interrupt-driven device drivers? From where I sit, the 2.0 system calls are nothing more than a frill. No. Actually, MS-DOS is worse than CP/M. CP/M never got caught into the trap of becoming specific to one piece of hardware. > Take this from someone who has programmed for MS DOS and used CP/M. Take this from someone who has programmed both MS-DOS and CP/M, who did a Forth-based multitasker that ran fine under CP/M in 1983, and who has used and programmed under more different operating systems than you can spell. Sheesh. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' .