Editor Wars

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

I will now attempt to use "volant" in casual conversation sometime in the next week. I'll do my best to look out for any excuse, no matter how terrible.
I can't imagine a situation in which I wouldn't be looked at oddly for using the word, and can only imagine a few people who might even know the meaning of that word.

You're awesome, Donfuy.

[Vyacheslav]

Yeah, well DOS was released in 1981 and 6.22 came out in 1994.

What do you mean by that?

I'm saying that it's been around longer than Linux has and it's just as stable too.

And you think linux cant do this? O_o

I never said it can't. I'm just saying DOS can be installed on anything from 386 machines to quad core systems.

[otters]

Some English words serve only to identify foreigners using a poor translation service, e.g. "volant" and "nescient."

[smartalco]

I never said it can't. I'm just saying DOS can be installed on anything from 386 machines to quad core systems.

Wait up. DOS can even use more than 1 core? It hails from the days when multi-socket systems were bleeding edge. Multicore wasn't even on the map yet.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

9!,

UNIX was developed in 1969. Four years later, DOS' predecessor, CP/M, was developed. DOS, itself, primarily in the form of a cheap CP/M knockoff, came another seven years after that. (And then Linux, which is overwhelmingly UNIX, came about eleven years later.)
Because Linux is based so heavily on the design of UNIX, saying that DOS has been around before Linux makes as much of a point as saying that Linux came about before Windows 2000.

UNIX was developed by legendary names in computer science, such as Kernighan, Richie, and Thompson. Linux grew out of the UNIX-based MINIX, which was the brainchild of the god of operating systems that is Andrew Tanenbaum.
The various implementations and derivatives of DOS, on the other hand, were written by a bunch of fucking nobodies.

FreeDOS is listed as the latest release of a DOS-like operating system, so I'm going to assume that it's representative of the best DOS has to offer. You go ahead and let me know if you use a different release that actually looks like it could be confused for an OS developed within the last decade.
As I expected, I am totally unimpressed with the list of features offered. Unless I'm missing something here, it doesn't appear to support 64-bit processors, still uses the terribly outdated FAT32 file system, and only ever expects to use the very tip of the RAM found in any respectable desktop computer today. Hell, the latest release of any of these DOS derivatives appears to be three years ago. I am legitimately afraid to any questions about wireless networking and OS emulation.
The choice to emulate MS-DOS, of all operating systems, should have been the only warning sign necessary.

Now, I'm not saying that it's not usable. Pretty much any OS churned out after the early 70's can be considered a tremendous improvement over pen, paper, and a calculator. But what I am saying is that it's fucking pathetic. With the present alternatives, I don't see why anyone in their right mind would go with anything resembling MS-DOS. I don't understand why someone would do that to himself, to undercut his own potential so severely. If I were forced to use a DOS computer at work (I do AI research for the US Navy), I can honestly see myself so frustrated with the lack of sophisticated job control, text processing, and even little things I take for granted like arbitrary-precision calculators, that I would actually break down and cry before the day was up.
Of course it's stable as a rock -- it has all the functionality of a rock!

Unless you're able to tell me, truthfully, that any DOS or DOS-like operating system today can offer me equivalents to shells like bash and zsh, editors like vi and emacs, super-efficient convenience tools like GNU coreutils, networking tools like ssh and wget, web servers like apache, windowing systems like X with GTK+ and Qt, web browsing on par with Firefox and Google Chrome, image manipulation like GIMP and InkScape, typesetting capabilities like LaTeX, support for modern high-level programming languages like Python and Ruby, and easy software package management like RPM or APT, or unless it makes up for the lack of some or all of these things as Windows 7 does as a gaming platform (e.g. if you're about to tell me I can play Assassin's Creed 2 in FreeDOS 1.0), I'm not even going to waste my time giving your DOS bullshit a trial run.
You go ahead and edit your SoundBlaster16 configs in EDLIN, or whatever. I'll be over here continuing my education and career as a computer scientist with a tool that's capable and still relevant to the world of computing.

Now go away. You depress me.

[Geti]

Damnit Tsukatu you put my

I never said it can't. I'm just saying DOS can be installed on anything from 386 machines to quad core systems.

And you think linux cant do that? O_o

to shame.

[Vyacheslav]

Alright, DOS has some good uses today, ESPECIALLY for running old PC games. Especially ones that are fussy with DOS box.

[SlappyMcGee]

Alright, DOS has some good uses today, ESPECIALLY for running old PC games. Especially ones that are fussy with DOS box.

The only real way I expect anybody to be playing a DOS game these days is through Steam, which automatically configures DOSBox for you. Not to mention, most games have lots of user support with DOSBox where configuration is rarely something the enduser needs to deal with.

[Vyacheslav]

DOSBox cannot run many games at their native speed as, say, a 486 can. DOS games often ran at the highest FPS possible, without a limiter, so many games even on Pentium systems ran fast.

[Donfuy]

Some English words serve only to identify foreigners using a poor translation service, e.g. "volant" and "nescient."

DDDD:>

WHAT TRANSLATION SERVICE DO YOU RECOMMEND TSUKATU ;_;

[smartalco]

DOSBox cannot run many games at their native speed as, say, a 486 can. DOS games often ran at the highest FPS possible, without a limiter, so many games even on Pentium systems ran fast.

For perspective. I have a Q6600. That is a 2.4ghz quad core x86-64 processor. I could probably run Prime95 on 3 cores so they are completely maxed, move every other process over to the 4th core so only 1 core is handling all the background OS threads and everything else I may be doing, and still have enough processing headroom left to emulate any DOS game at 10x speed. Games for that OS were made to run with like 256MB of ram, if that, my graphics card alone has 512MB. If a modern computer truly can't use DOSBox to run an ancient game at native speed, that only speaks to how bad of a program DOSBox is.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

WHAT TRANSLATION SERVICE DO YOU RECOMMEND TSUKATU ;_;

THE ONE IN YOUR BRAIN CALLED "BEING ABLE TO SPEAK THE FUCKING LANGUAGE"

DOSBox cannot run many games at their native speed as, say, a 486 can. DOS games often ran at the highest FPS possible, without a limiter, so many games even on Pentium systems ran fast.

Considering they're DOS games, even if the overhead was as obnoxious as 10x the original, modern hardware should have no problems with this.
There are two DOS games I play very regularly, for example, and I have never had problems running them in DOSBox.

[Vyacheslav]

2 games out of thousands of games. Also, smartalco: I'm not doubting the processing prowess of your Q6600, (that is a great processor), but moreso the fact that modern day processors may run certain DOS games at a much faster speed than they were designed for. And they weren't designed for 256mb... DOS was limited to using at most 64mb of extended memory. And most DOS users were well satisfied with 16-32mb of RAM at most.

[SlappyMcGee]

2 games out of thousands of games. Also, smartalco: I'm not doubting the processing prowess of your Q6600, (that is a great processor), but moreso the fact that modern day processors may run certain DOS games at a much faster speed than they were designed for. And they weren't designed for 256mb... DOS was limited to using at most 64mb of extended memory. And most DOS users were well satisfied with 16-32mb of RAM at most.

Cite some examples of games that cannot be run at 1x on a modern computer. I will try and example you cite and get back to this thread.

[Geti]

2 games out of thousands of games. Also, smartalco: I'm not doubting the processing prowess of your Q6600, (that is a great processor), but moreso the fact that modern day processors may run certain DOS games at a much faster speed than they were designed for. And they weren't designed for 256mb... DOS was limited to using at most 64mb of extended memory. And most DOS users were well satisfied with 16-32mb of RAM at most.

You clearly haven't found the keys which adjust the emulated clock cycles to get the game to a speed you want. I suspect quite a few people havent (thus all the "OMG LIERO LAGS DOSBOX IS A BAD PROGRAM" bullshit).

most DOS users were well satisfied with 16-32mb of RAM at most.

You say that like it's amazing or something, back in the days of 512MB hard drives being well big. I bet you aren't satisfied with that much RAM, in any case. Even if any of that was astounding (which it isnt) you can get linux running on just about anything (phones, your DS (albeit shittily), any computer able to accept a floppy disk). And then (assuming resources) have all the stability and modularity and foss you want WITH A FUCKING GUI. Nothing against the cli, but I like working with a mouse and prefer ffox to links for web browsing.

I love how this has turned into an OS war. Also wtf you're trying to tell us DOS beats linux, how can you expect to substantiate that?

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

I love how this has turned into an OS war. Also wtf you're trying to tell us DOS beats linux, how can you expect to substantiate that?

But it's stable, Geti! That's why the New York Stock Exchange is built on-- OH WAIT THAT'S RIGHT IT USES LINUX

[SlappyMcGee]

I love how this has turned into an OS war. Also wtf you're trying to tell us DOS beats linux, how can you expect to substantiate that?

But it's stable, Geti! That's why the New York Stock Exchange is built on-- OH WAIT THAT'S RIGHT IT USES LINUX

batman uses dos

http://www.insidepulsemedia.com/columnI ... e11805.jpg

[Vyacheslav]

DOS forever. I'm tired of you guys putting words in my mouth with "You claim DOS > Linux." I never said that. Linux is far superior in terms of usability. I'm forever hopelessly stuck in the 1990s. We all know that by now. Thanks.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

DOS forever. I'm tired of you guys putting words in my mouth with "You claim DOS > Linux." I never said that. Linux is far superior in terms of usability. I'm forever hopelessly stuck in the 1990s. We all know that by now. Thanks.

I have absolutely nothing against this if this is merely a hobby of yours. I simply suspect that it isn't.
Hell, I learned how to use ed (the UNIX equivalent of MS-DOS' EDLIN) and have been trying to force myself to use it at every opportunity because I think it's hilarious, but I still know to bust out vim when I need to do serious work. But I don't go around claiming that it's the most stable and secure editor by virtue of its age and small size (less code => fewer bugs).

[SlappyMcGee]

DOS forever. I'm tired of you guys putting words in my mouth with "You claim DOS > Linux." I never said that. Linux is far superior in terms of usability. I'm forever hopelessly stuck in the 1990s. We all know that by now. Thanks.

You can't say "most reliable" if there is an equally stable OS that does more shit.