Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> The point is that Windows 3.11 was really just a *program* that reads 
> mouse input and makes a graphical display.

  Well, all operating systems are just programs that read mouse input
and whatever. Are you trying to say that an OS is *not* a program?-)

> It basically does almost nothing else.

  It does a lot more else. It had a rather extensive graphical API, for one.

> I could, hypothetically, sit down and throw something 
> together in TurboPascal that does the same thing.

  You mean that TurboPascal cannot be used to write an OS?

> I see... So all that HIMEM.SYS crap was just a hack to convince outdated 
> software to use new hardware capabilities? No wonder it never worked well...

  Nope. It was a way for newly-written 16-bit software to use more than
1MB of memory.

> >>>   But Windows 3 does support multitasking. Granted, it's not pre-emptive,
> >>> but it's still multitasking.
> > 
> >> AFAIK, it supports running several applications at once. Only one of 
> >> them can actually "do" anything at a time
> > 
> >   How exactly is that different from a regular pre-emptive multitaskin OS
> > running in a single processor?

> In a real multitasking OS, several programs can "do stuff" at once. 

  And so they can in a cooperative multitasking OS. I don't really see
the difference.

> [Obviously the hardware is being time-sliced, but that's not visible to 
> the end user.]

  Nor it is in a cooperative multitasking OS either (as long as programs
behave properly).

> >   It was perfectly possible to run several programs at the same time in
> > Windows 3 and have them run simultaneously. Even the Windows version of
> > POV-Ray was originally made for Windows 3, and it didn't lock the computer
> > during renders.

> Really? That's news to me. I was told that only the program that owns 
> the active window can actually use the CPU.

  You were told wrong.

> >> Well, a PC that has Windows 95 also has MS-DOS, and you can freely 
> >> switch between the two...
> > 
> >   Well, my PC has Linux and Windows XP, and I can freely switch between
> > the two. That doesn't mean one is running on top of the other.

> 1. You have to reboot the machine to do that.

  And the difference with Win9x/DOS is...?

> 2. It is possible to use XP without Linux. It is possible to use Linux 
> without XP. It is not possible to use Windows 3.11 without MS-DOS.

  We were talking about Windows 95 in this context, not Windows 3.

> >> ...whereas a PC running Windows NT4 does not, usually, have MS-DOS at 
> >> all. Many people asked "where's the 'exit to DOS' button gone?" The 
> >> answer being "MS-DOS is a completely several OS and you would have to 
> >> reboot to exit WinNT to get to it".
> > 
> >   I'm not really getting your point. If I installed linux on a PC
> > I wouldn't have had any "exit to DOS" button either. So what?

> Windows 3.11 *requires* MS-DOS in order to function. Windows NT does 
> not. (And obviously neither does Linux.)

  So? As I said, it was a completely separate alternative. I still don't
see how it "replaced" anything.

> I wasn't sure whether it was still real-mode or not. Certainly the NT 
> kernel seems a lot more stable. ;-)

  Was the *kernel* of Win95 notoriously unstable? (Of course that comes
down to the definition of "kernel".)

> I don't recall ever complaining about the hardware being closed, or the 
> OS being tied to it. [Though obviously it *is* a bit of a pitty that 
> Macs come in a fixed set of configurations and cannot be changed.] 

  How many times have you changed the configuration of a PC (other than
eg. adding an additional hard drive or RAM, both of which you can
perfectly well do to a Mac)?

> 1. A Mac is a very expensive piece of hardware [assuming you can find 
> somebody who sells them].

  You still have this misconception and you just don't want to let go
of it.

  Sure, Apple doesn't offer almost anything in the below-crappy and
laughably cheap range, but their prices seem very competitive to me
when compared to PCs with *equivalent* specs. Whenever you see a
suspiciously cheap PC which seems to have high specs, there's always
something which brings the price down and cripples the system in one
way or another. Apple seldom does that.

> 2. I would have to throw away all my existing software.

  That doesn't make even the least bit of sense. Are you saying that if
you buy a second computer, you have to throw away the first one? Why?
How does that make any sense?

  Besides, you can install Windows XP (and AFAIK even Vista) in current
Macs. It's not a problem.

> 3. I would have to buy replacements for all [or at least some] of the 
> stuff I just threw away.

  Or you could just use your old computer when you need it. Why would
you throw it away? I don't get it.

> 4. Some software can only be found on Windoze.

  And you can use it in your old computer. (Or, if you really want, you
can run it in your Mac too.) So what?

> Apple are quick to claim that it's "easy" to get a Mac to talk to other 
> Windows PCs. But given that I have two Windows PCs and they don't want 
> to talk to each other, what are the chances of them talking to a 
> complete alien? ;-)

  The chances are pretty good when you install the software which Apple
gives you.

> If I was going to go down this road, I'd need to know for sure that I'd 
> actually be able to do something *useful* with a Mac.

  Like what?

> I played this game 
> with Linux; I had both Windoze and Linux installed, but since 98% of the 
> software I want to use is on Windoze

  Exactly what software is that?

  Personally, the *only* software I need which is only available for
Windows is computer games. I boot to Windows only to play (and I do
that relatively rarely).

> Eventually I got tired of Linux being catestrophically 
> broken every time any item of hardware changed, so I just removed it 
> completely.

  Right, no other linux user ever changes their hardware and thus
avoids all problems, which is why linux is never fixed. You are the
only person in the world to do that.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message