DOS is better then Windows...

[Mini-Me]

Hi all.


Don't dismiss DOS out of hand as being totally useless these days...

I find that DOS in general, is:

- More stable then Windows (any version) with a well coded application
- More reliable then Windows(any version) with a well coded application

True, it is very basic, and only single-tasking, but for those of us who need a single-tasking OS, DOS is so much better then using Windows...

Don't believe me?

OK, have a couple of examples:

I run my own FM radio station, and use MPXPLAY for DOS as the MP3 player.
It uses DOS only, and no Windoze.
It just plays and plays and plays - no crashes, and you can happily run it 24/7 on the likes of a P75 with 16MB RAM easily...
Needs an ESS or SB ISA type sound-card, but these are easy to find, and pretty much any m/board of the P100 family will have an ISA slot...

<www.geocities.com/mpxplay>

The most recent machine, is based on a P100 with 16MB of RAM - a machine put togeather out of parts/pc's collected from the dump - I kid you not...

The hard-drives were supplied by me, but the city dump provided the rest...

"MP3?! - so what?!?!!" - I hear you say - well DOS can also play your DivX and MPG files, to name but a couple of formats.

I have just finished building the prototype QuickView box for DOS, and it plays all my movies - no Windoze required...

<http://multimediaware.com/qv/index.html>

So don't dismiss DOS.
Although, to play DivX etc, you still need a reasonably quick CPU, like around a 1GHz flavour, DOS can play all these things for you, without having to resort to Windows Woes...

I'm thinking outside the square here, so don't be too mean on me!


(but hey, the above solutions worked BEAUTIFULLY for me!!!)


MM.

[classicsoftware]

Hi all.


Don't dismiss DOS out of hand as being totally useless these days...

I find that DOS in general, is:

- More stable then Windows (any version) with a well coded application
- More reliable then Windows(any version) with a well coded application

True, it is very basic, and only single-tasking, but for those of us who need a single-tasking OS, DOS is so much better then using Windows...

Now why would you go and say something that silly. Does DOS do certain things better than windows, I'm sure it does. I still support a DOS application that I wrote a long time ago.

Is DOS better than Windows, the answer is NO. For 99.9999999% of the people who use computers Windows is way better than DOS. They want to have their Word Processor, Web Browser, E-mail client and their Media Player all going at the same time.

DOS is dead, long live DOS..

[FrankSG]

The Model-A ford was built better than the cars they make these days. But, which one would you rather drive???

[Rick]

The Model-A ford was built better than the cars they make these days. But, which one would you rather drive???

Thats easy .
The Model A


There are a lot of us still using DOS
For a Lot more than just playing music and video files.

Running everything from Cad to Word

[Paul Komski]

It's not really much sense to compare DOS and Windows. DOS (as mjc used to say) is your friend. DOS has real value and specific uses - especially for techies. Just one example. I carry round a small hard drive with a DOS partition containing most of the troubleshooting and recovery utilities I need. If there are any problems with booting to CDs or floppies I can attach this HDD to just about any PC and get something up and running straight away.

[Mini-Me]

Ahhh...

You guys did realize that I was saying all that tongue-in-cheek, right?


I am very impressed with Windows and all it can do, and sure, DOS cannot really compete, but I was using this approach to hammer home that in a single-tasking application such as a media player box, or a MP3 player box, then it still has use, and it is basic and simple to work with.

I do use it for the apps I talked about(radio station and media-player), and I think that it is an alternative in these situations, rather then having to buy a flash new XP machine, to do something that a P100 can easily do.

For these SINGLE-TASK boxes, I find that the DOS approach actually is far more stable and far more reliable then Windows could ever hope to be...

-The MPXplay DOS box MP3 player - it's been running for more then 2 years, 24/7, and NEVER crashes - the only down time, is to upload more music, or edit a playlist - Windows would be down within the 1st 24hrs on a P100 with 16MB ram - do you see what I'm trying to say?

- The media player - plays movies from start to end - under Windows(98 or XP) more often then not, the machine locks, or fails to play the movie from start to finish, as Windows is trying to do something else in the background(maybe many things!) - a DOS based player has only one thing to think about - playing your movie - everything else is ignored, unless there is a systamic fault - do you see what I mean about this way of playing media?

I trust this clarifies the tongue-in-cheek position!!!


For the record, I wish to state, that I in no way SERIOUSLY compare DOS to Windows - it's just nice, I think, to find old applications that run on older harware, with an older OS, which can perform a modern task; IE: MP3 player and/or movie player.

So I say again: Don't dismiss DOS out of hand!


To Rick: What else do you use DOS for?
I'm curious...


MM.