China DOS Union

If DOS is regarded as a disk operating system, then without a doubt, as the kernel of an operating system, in that sense everyone needs it. But if we are only discussing application programs under DOS, I’m afraid the overwhelming majority of people do not need them. Whether Windows or Linux, both have already gone far ahead of DOS. You no longer see DOS versions in hardware vendors’ driver development either. It is very difficult for DOS to develop further. Of course, Linux was more or less like this at the beginning too, but now it has already grown strong.

As for the development of DOS, in my view, either you develop the operating system kernel from the ground up, or you make applications under DOS. Neither of these is easy. Writing a kernel actually changes the nature of it. You can improve existing DOS so that it supports more things, or you can rewrite a DOS from scratch, but that is no longer the DOS we usually mean (that is, Microsoft’s DOS) — you are developing a new operating system, while drawing on some DOS experience. Outside Windows and Linux, what would a new operating system be like?

As for application development, other than embedded systems I can’t think of any better direction. DOS can be as small as Linux, fitting on a single 1.44M floppy disk. In implementing an embedded operating system, that is very competitive, and Windows cannot compare. But DOS is inferior to Linux in networking performance, and that is a weakness.

So I think developing network software under DOS is, relatively speaking, a more promising direction, and it can also bring some business opportunities.

I feel the same.

I strongly agree with your point of view, especially regarding

“Neither of these is easy. Writing a kernel actually changes the nature of it. You can improve existing DOS so that it supports more things, or you can rewrite a DOS from scratch, but that is no longer the DOS we usually mean (that is, Microsoft’s DOS) — you are developing a new operating system, while drawing on some DOS experience. Outside Windows and Linux, what would a new operating system be like?”

This is a fact that many people who want to improve DOS or develop DOS have not clearly recognized.

Many characteristics of DOS are what make it

it, and not something else

as an operating system. These characteristics started from DOS 1.0; they are the essential things that distinguish it from other operating systems.
For example, the 640K limitation and the UNIX-like ROOT structure. These are things that must be taken into account when developing DOS programs.
MS had the ability to make DOS as good as UNIX, but then DOS X.0 could no longer be compatible with earlier DOS, which is to say,
the result of doing that would have been to abandon its supporters and abandon DOS’s own essence.

As for whether it cannot be compatible with earlier DOS, that is not necessarily so... For example, didn’t MS add long filename support and other features in newer versions of MS-DOS? But that doesn’t mean it could no longer be compatible with earlier DOS programs either...

Sigh. The example you gave is exactly supporting my point, isn’t it?

MS-DOS 1.0-------7.1 is the best example of making brutal sacrifices for the sake of compatibility.
Its long compatibility list makes every system programmer shudder when they see it; and makes every
application programmer smile knowingly when they see it.

Even by 7.1, DOS still had not given up FCB. Downward compatibility is also the main reason why the DOS user base is so large.
Here the users more often means programmers who write application programs.

So that wonderful 640K, FCB, and so on, are all features that make MSDOS what it is.

As for incompatibility, actually it is not easy to say much, because operating systems such as FREE-DOS and DR-DOS
can only be called MS-DOS-like systems. In the early stages of their development, they indeed aimed
to get close to MSDOS. But just like the many versions of UNIX, they too have certain “characteristics” that make them
new operating systems that are themselves and not something else.

Their compatibility with each other is no longer MS’s responsibility. Rather, it is the inevitable demand of users that has made it so. Thanks to these
developers. It is they who have given us more Options.

zykdos, do you have MSN?? Want to chat with you~