[arachne] Re: Arachne Compatible DOS Software

Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!

On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 02:54:25 -0700, Bob Dohse wrote:

> Although I would argue that Windows 9x is technically a DOS program

Yes and no. It is more than just a DOS program (not only because of
the number of bugs ;-> ), but less than a standalone operating system
-- it still needs DOS for some of its functionality.

> For example, try running a command-line program from within Arachne. Most
> of the time the DOS program writes to the screen (although sometimes to a
> file).

If a program writes directly to the screen, it is not a true
command-line program. Command-line programs typically read from
standard input (which is often keyboard) and write to standard
output (which is often screen), they can also read/write files.
But this is DOS who handles stdin/stdout and reads from keyboard
and writes to the screen for the program. Both stdin and stdout
can be redirected by the human operator or by the caller (parent
process) from/to disk files or other devices (say, serial port
or printer), which is the mechanism used by DGIs (and also CGIs
on *nix servers).

Michal


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-- Arachne, The Web Browser/Suite for DOS and Linux --

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