Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!news.uu.net!tnc!m0154
From: m0154@tnc.UUCP (GUY GARNETT)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: Short Hello World
Message-ID: <816@tnc.UUCP>
Date: 22 May 91 13:35:28 GMT
References: <4936@orbit.cts.com>
Reply-To: m0154@tnc.UUCP (GUY GARNETT)
Organization: The Next Challenge, Fairfax, Va.
Lines: 25


>you can't expect your programs to run forever, otherwise we're no
>better than MS-DOS machines.

I should probably point out that under v1.xx of Ms-DOS, all disk
access was done through "FCB's"; ie: CP/M style File Control Blocks,
In general, programming FCB's was barely easier than doing direct BIOS
level disk I/O (in other words, a real pain).

When MicroSoft released v2.00, the mentioned that programmers should
no longer use the FCB based I/O routines, but should use the
file-handle oriented routines (which treat a file as a stream of
bytes, just like UNIX and AmigaDOS).

While I believe that FCB calls are still legal under Ms-DOS, many of
the more modern features of that operating system are not available to
FCB-based programs (features like subdirectories, for example).


Operating systems grow and change; old methods become obsolete as new
ways of doing things are developed.  An operating system which does
not grow and change this way becomes stagnant and then dies.  Programs
also have to grow and change, or they too will die.

Wildstar