Mail Archives: djgpp/1999/09/07/02:31:00
Clemens Valens <c DOT valensNOckSPAM AT mindless DOT com> wrote in message
news:022eeae0 DOT e55837f4 AT usw-ex0102-011 DOT remarq DOT com...
> I did not want to reply, but I couldn't help myself. I
> mean, do people ever think?
Not in my experience with them :-))
> If you are using MSDOS now then you will probably have a
> back-up of it somewhere. So no matter what OS is shipped
> with a new PC, you can still transform it into a MSDOS
> machine.
Exactly. DOS will not die, it has not died, it will never die. There will
always be support for it (for at least the next 10 years probably), and if
there is support for it, Microsoft will support it. Far be it from Microsoft
to pass up a money making opportunity. DOS, in many respects, is an inferior
operating system, but it's just so damn linear, easy to program, and, dare I
say it, cool :-))
> Then, if your employer *forces* you to use Windows or
> whatever, what are you using MSDOS for? Not for your work
> in any case. So if you want to use MSDOS you simply install
> it on another machine at home.
Or merely install it to another partition on your current system.
> The only thing that is correct here is that the new Windows
> will probably again become the most widely used OS in the
> world, but that leaves everybody completely free to choose
> any OS they want. There is nothing new here, it has also
> happened with previous versions of Windows.
Right, and why has Windows become the most popular operating system / GUI in
the world? One word: marketing. If it hadn't been for Microsoft furiously
plugging its products, we might see a lot more use of things like MacOS,
OS/2 and Linux.
> If you want to use MSDOS, use it. If people want to use
> programs that were written for MSDOS (or any other OS) they
> have to have an MSDOS (or any other OS) capable machine. If
> Microsoft does not provide it anymore, then get it
> somewhere else.
And does anyone really believe Microsoft will not provide, at least at a
basic level, some support for DOS? At the end of the day, Microsoft is
nothing more than a coporate giant with a lot of money and a pretty GUI :-))
> And then the crack about icons and the ability to read.
> This is of course utter nonsense, which can only come from
> somebody who has no understanding whatsoever of the average
> computer user.
This is very true. Average John Doe knows absolutely nothing about
computers, doesn't want to learn anything and needs Windows to get a basic
understanding of how to point-and-click. If he were presented with a
white-on-black terminal like back in the glory days of DOS, he would be
forced to buy a good book and actually learn something! This is unacceptable
in today's world, as people just want to get there work done faster without
worrying about the details. I know people that only ever use the word
processor (I'm sure you do to), who break out into cold sweats if you ask
them to do anything besides double-click on the pretty icon with the big
blue W :-)
People are not stupid, but they convince themselves that computers are
something only for the elite and they shouldn't know anything about them
(besides the word processor).
DOS is not dead, in fact, the saga has only just begun.
Cheers,
--
Johan Venter
ICQ 3643877
surf.to/djgppig
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