Old MS-DOS & WIN Software

[Allison]

>
>Subject: Re: Old MS-DOS & WIN Software
>   From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk>
>   Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 19:26:47 +0000
>     To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>Madcrow Maxwell wrote:
>> Well, IMHO, Win95 was rather close to a real multitasking system, at
>> least for Win32 programs. Maybe not as good as Linux or even NT, but
>> it got the job done and got it done significantly better than 3.x
>
>My main problem with it was that it tended to disintegrate over time and 
>eventually would need a reinstall as functionality would start to break and 
>free disk space would mysteriously vanish...

That was a FAT problem with crashes and power fails.  Also some apps that
allocate space and never return it.  FYI: the worst offenders were MS apps!

There are patches that can be applied and last version (b) was better.
But in the end FAT is not robust.

>All modern OSes (MS-based and otherwise) seem to suffer from that, but Win95 
>was the worst.
>
>> And before people go bashing 95 anymore, I want to go on record as
>> saying it's one of the few M$ products I actually like. It runs well
>> on even a 486 with only 8 MB of RAM
>
>Not for program development it doesn't. Been there, done that! I can believe 
>it works well enough for WP and the like though.

The environment descrived is too small.  While a 486/66 is fine "ve found that 
16mb or better 32mb of was more effective than faster cpu.

>I'd say it was the point where the downward spiral of ever-increasing 
>application bloat started though. I don't remember Win 3.x apps or even apps 
>on other platforms being as colossal as the typical Win95 app was, and it's 
>all gradually got worse since then.  I'm not sure whether Win95 itself is the 
>root cause of that or not - probably not, but it's strange that it happened 
>around that time period.

Bigger OS and fancier apps with inefficient compilers that drag truckloads
along for the ride needed or not contribute.  Whats scary is when I see apps
written in script languages that compile to some intermediate form that isn't
native then we know it's convenience rather than efficientcy.


Allison


>cheers
>
>Jules