[arachne] Re: what can't DOS do ??? (was Re: Mouse? )

  • From: Jason Dodd <jasorn@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: arachne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 06:59:15 -0600

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Eric S. Emerson wrote: 
Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!

Well Jason,
You just proved it to me.....
You want much more from your computer
than I do. None of that stuff you mentioned
is important to me.
My point exactly. When it comes time to objectively compare things, OSs in this case, some people will claim their favorite to be the best. However, when it's laid out in black and white, the objective person will realize it was just his bias and not the facts swaying is opinion. Whereas the zealot says things like, "Oh, I don't use it for that anyway." or "Well that functionality isn't important for me."

The only things that I would
like and miss is the ability to do Javascript and
secure/encrypted transactions.
Even this one thing is enough since there are many options, even one that runs on pretty old hw, that can run javascript secure transactions. Again, objectivity is the keyword.
The rest I don't
need....but....your welcome to it. Enjoy your multi
tasking and enjoy your OS which is so complex
that it trips over itself and cannot be fixed.
My OS rotations these days is: Linux, freedos, winxp, and the c64. I'm a FLOSS bigot so for the last 3 years winxp wasn't in the rotation. I recently added it back because I felt I was forgetting things I should know for work. Honestly, the c64 and freedos are the only two I've had to reboot to fix a problem in months :) I think the freedos issue is something wrong with my drive though.

As for breaking to the point I need a reinstall, that hasn't happened in windows, linux or dos is quite some time. Maybe I'm getting luckier at avoiding pitfalls.
When
it starts balking and acting up and rebooting doesn't cure it....well....just reformat the drive
and re-install it. I spend more time keeping
my non-DOS machine working, chasing viruses,
eradicating spam-bots, etc. than I actually
spend using it for productive things. And it
seems when I need it most is the time it usually
picks to balk. It's only a necessary evil.
I'm only guessing but it sounds like your non-dos machine is a windows machine. While I mostly detest windows, it puzzles me why so many old salt computer users have malware issues with it. A router with a firewall, free anti virus program and anti spyware program has kept me malware free.

The short answer is, "I agree. Don't spend your time in windows. But if you want or need similar functionality because the best OS hasn't gotten around to implementing it yet, give one of the many fine free versions of bsd/linux a go." That has nothing to do with windows bashing. It's a FLOSS thing. If reactos hits v1.0, I'll gladly use it with the same precautions noted above. Since it has the registry like windows, I doubt it has a chance to beat out linux in my mind but it is welcome in my rotation.

Thankfully, linux poses just about no risk in those areas. Maybe that will change in the future but now it only needs the router/firewall. I can't dis windows too much, though. It's made me plenty of money.

Actually, the last virus I got was a DOS virus :) I bought "The Elder Scrolls" on 3 1/2" floppy about 3 years ago. It installed and played fine. I made the mistake of leaving the floppy in when I rebooted. I'll be danged if it didn't have the Monkey Boot virus. The disks had factory labels so that was the farest thing from my mind. 
Eric

On Sun, 29 Oct 2006 22:24:50 -0600 Jason Dodd <jasorn@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!


Mr. Dodd,

Here's my list of what DOS can't do.

1) JAVA applets
2) Java script
3) Windows Media Video (.WMV files)
4) Shockwave Flash (.SWF files)
5) RealAudio/RealVideo
6) streaming audio/streaming video

Although there are some very rudementary java script interpretors
for DOS, so little of it can be done in DOS that we can esentially
that.... "virtually no Java script can be done in DOS".

And although there are some older RA2Wav players for DOS.
They do not work with the newer versions of RealNetworks files
which
are being made available today.

But that's it... 6 things that I've found during my 28yrs of using
computers (starting with the Radio Shack TRS-80 model 1 [which I
still
have and which is still in perfect working order]), all the way up
to
this P4-1.5ghz machine I'm using right now and the P4-3ghz machine
just purchased a few weeks ago... which can't be done in DOS.

___________________

Please, show me your list.

Well, that list is good enough to knock dos off of the 'Objective' list of best OSs as it is. You left off anything that DOS can do that others can't. The rest on your list is proprietary but even

6) streaming audio/streaming video

is enough to make it not the best OS, objectively speaking.

It is past my bed time but for starters you can build a list of any 10 apps DOS can run and let me know how to run them all at once. I've tried various ways of multitasking in the past but never found a method that seemed to work well. Perhaps that's just me not knowing enough. Handling multiple users is another.

So how do you run a wysiwyg editor, preferably html, cd playing in the background, instant messenger on so my son can im me, compile the program of the day, etc all at the same time I'm checking out the latest hacks on hackaday?




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