China DOS Union

To be honest with you all, I haven't been learning programming for many years either. At first I started with qb, and had never even used QUICKBASIC. Later I switched directly to VB60, and after that I spent about a week learning C++ syntax before breaking away from basic, which hides everything, and entering the world of the low level. Later on I learned assembly. Right now I mainly use LCC and MASM8。0 to make some programs under WINDOWS,
and use TURBO C++ and MASM5。0 to make some programs under DOS and programs independent of DOS! The reason I still develop under DOS is mainly because DOS can give me a lot of freedom, and everything at the low level is right there in front of me. It's really very good! But I don't understand the DOS system very well, and I don't want to understand it either. I know this system is already completely hopeless, but as a development platform it is still pretty good. Just as MINIX gave birth to LINUX, something like that should also appear under DOS. That is DOS's real future!
Right now I mainly use DOS to study things like file decoding and how to write operating systems. If everyone can cast aside their fanaticism toward DOS and face DOS's future squarely, then I will study some truly interesting things together with everyone!

I remember when I was developing programs with VB60, I always insisted on using WIN32API to make programs. Back then a lot of experts
said I was aiming too high, but in the end, when I moved over into C++, everything benefited from my yearning for and persistence with the low level at that time. Otherwise I could only have been a VB user, letting M$ lead me around by the nose! I'm not saying VB60 is bad, but I hate it when I'm doing something and there are so many things you don't even know how they work. You know that it works, but not why it works—isn't that kind of sad?!

Support!!! But right now the main thing is that most people in this country are not familiar with programming under DOS, so there are certain limits if you want to develop it further. So there absolutely need to be more DOS programming experts appearing. Of course, the premise is that there have to be DOS users. So fanatical support for DOS is also necessary, and DOS programming experts are indispensable too.

Actually, the purpose of developing under DOS, first and foremost, is to break away from DOS and build another thing different from DOS. We're just using DOS as a shell to hatch another egg under it! Creating another platform of our own is much better than patching up DOS!

I agree with part of the OP's view. "The reason is that DOS can give me a lot of freedom, and everything at the low level is right there in front of me. It's really very good!"

But honestly, isn't a system with open source code even more "right there in front of you"? (Of course, DOS source code has been HACKed out too, hehe.)

The source code of FreeDOS, OpenDOS, PTS-DOS and other DOSes was available to begin with; it wasn't HACKed out by anyone..

The low level should mean the parts close to the hardware. This doesn't seem to have any direct connection with open source code. Under DOS, using BIOS when writing programs is a very ordinary thing, or even using interfaces directly, so you do know more about low-level things under DOS. That doesn't seem to have anything to do with so-called open source code

DOS and Windows are both just operating systems. Even though it feels now that MS has concealed too many things, in fact, if we really develop a brand-new OS, the GUI behind it would probably end up going down a road similar to MS's as well.
Fairly speaking, aside from price and competitive tactics, MS really did establish a milestone.
As for so-called prospects... that depends on the broader environment. A lot of basic work needs to be done by the state and society. What we ought to be concerned about now should be CDU's future.

Ugh. After talking around and around, it's still DOS, WINDOWS, and all that... No matter how much MS has hidden, anyone determined to become an expert will definitely dig these things out and learn them...
If we rely only on grassroots groups like ours to make DOS prosper, that's unrealistic. At most we can let more people know that there is such an OS as DOS, and understand the advantages of DOS, because a grassroots group like this lacks the power of "constraint" and can only rely entirely on "willingness." On top of that, Chinese government policy is really far too different from foreign countries'. Abroad, if you're unemployed there are relief payments—does China have that? Think about it again: when you don't even have food to eat, would you still care about DOS?

What the poster above said makes sense.

Hehe, a lot of other DOSes really are open.

As for low-level things, actually there are historical reasons why they are open. If BM back then had used the same methods Microsoft uses today and hadn't made BIOS public, then IBM compatibles and PCs would still be monopolized by them alone, and today maybe we'd be at home starting by hacking BIOS.

：-）

Let me state this: the meaning of HACK here follows LARRY WALL's explanation, and does not refer only to reverse engineering.

The following is quoted from lemonhall's post on 2003-10-2 18:09:12:
Hehe, it really is open to many other DOSes.

As for the low-level stuff, it was actually made open for historical reasons too. If BM had used the same tactics Microsoft uses today back then and not disclosed the BIOS, then IBM compatibles and PCs would still be monopolized by that one company, and today we might be hacking from the BIOS up at home.

：-）

Let me make this clear: by HACK here I mean it in Larry Wall's sense, not just reverse engineering alone.

The low level does have a bit to do with history, but with something like history, understanding it is better than simply carrying it on. If IBM had not opened up the PC architecture at the beginning, you still couldn't say across the board that IBM was a monopoly. PCs probably would have ended up with the same fate as the MAC. As for the MAC, although the Macintosh architecture is not open, you can still find books in ordinary bookstores about the design of PowerPC microprocessors. So if a computer architecture has been used among the public for a long time, people who are interested in computers will naturally study it in depth. It won't become impossible for us to understand it just because of a monopoly.

But if even one out of a billion people keeps at it, I think things will be different. When I make things, I really admire one saying:
Before doing anything, build the platform first!
As long as there is a platform, our goal can aim higher and farther. That's much better than empty talk on paper!
No matter how bad it is, even if it's only about as good as MSDOS, it would still be our own. Then a lot of directions for development would be in our hands!

"When everybody adds firewood, the flames rise high."
If there are problems or results, they should all be shared! Don't be conservative!

The following is quoted from xy_god's post on 2003-9-29 13:49:09:
To be honest with you all, I haven't been learning programming for many years either. At first I started with qb, and had never even used QUICKBASIC. Later I switched directly to VB60, and after that I spent about a week learning C++ syntax before breaking away from basic, which hides everything, and entering the world of the low level

Although I haven't learned C, I've heard it has only 32 keywords and lots of function calls, so for beginners, don't those functions also "hide everything"? Actually basic doesn't hide everything either. It's just that after you understand computers, you will discover that basic, or C, or whatever else, doesn't hide everything.
After all, you can't make something like file functions yourself anyway, and in that respect there's not much difference from QB!
I think only after learning assembly can you truly understand the principles of computers (although I don't know it myself).
I don't think it really matters what language you learn. The key is to have programming thinking! That's the most important thing!