Help needed with OS/2

[X]

OS/2 has actually been reincarnated twice. First as eComStation (Serenity Systems) then as ArcaOS, which was released in May, still 32-bit only though.

There was also "OS/2 Warp Server 4" which was actually OS/2 Warp 3.0, but for some reason they put "4" on the packaging. No wonder OS/2 lost to Windows, thanks to rubbish marketing. Also, Windows NT allows multiple users on the system at the same time (obviously not all using the same screen at once) while OS/2 was still single user.

Still, this, as well as Windows 1.x/2.x/3.x/9x/ME are better than Windows 8 and above.

[Zero999]

I think you guys need to revise your timelines a tiny bit, your memory is a bit hazy, I reckon -- by 1994, 640x480@8 bit was not unusual at the low end, and the very high end was actually SXGA (1280x1024).  Remember, Windows 3.0 (released in 1990) was most commonly used with 640x480@4-bit, but 8-bit was common during its lifespan. By 1995, when Windows 95 came out, 800x600@8-bit was the recommended configuration, and 1024x768 was not unusual on beefier systems.

Looking at the ads in the Sept. 1994 issue of BYTE, I see that even ordinary laptops had 640x480 and 800x600 displays at 8-bit. The high end for Windows PCs (not even counting high-end workstations like Intergraph and Sun) was 24-bit color at SXGA, 3D acceleration was just beginning to hit the scene. It looks like the mainstream was unaccelerated 1MB SVGA, which allowed for 800x600@16-bit, with the CPU being the real bottleneck in that mode.

(For reference on the Mac side, the 1987 Mac II was the first to support external displays, and it supported 640x480 at 4-bit by default, 8-bit with VRAM upgrade. By 1991, high end Macs, namely the Quadra line, supported 1152x870@4-bit, and 8-bit with a VRAM upgrade. By late 1993, even some consumer Macs like the Performa 475 supported 1152x870@4-bit out of the box and 8-bit with added VRAM. Of course, such a display cost many times more than the consumer computer itself!)

What was cutting edge and what was common are two entirely different things. You have to remember, in the early 90's PCs were still not quite affordable for everyone. If you were a regular user on a budget you basically had two options: Buy a used name brand PC from someone upgrading (usually through classified ads) *or* buy a new mid-range no-name system from a local shop or computer show.

Anyway, in early 1994 the most common configuration by far (that the majority of people would have been capable running) would have been 640x480. I saw some statistics on this recently (common screen resolution from 1982 to 2016) but can't find it at the moment. One interesting thing about it was how VGA was by far the most popular resolution from shortly after its introduction up until just after Windows 95 came out; since, as you said, it recommended at least SVGA resolution. (It was that plus RAM prices falling that finally pushed people to upgrade I think.)

I mean, with the way Windows 3.1 ran programs there was little need for large screen resolutions for most home users.

I addressed what was cutting edge in my comment. The whole point was that hero999 originally said 640x480@8bit was a "quite high" resolution for 1994, which is utter nonsense: it was the entry level by then.

Obviously you lot must have had more money than my family had, back when I got my first PC at the age of 12: a 386 with a VGA card. I suppose a lot of you were working. There's a different to what the average family could afford and what you would have used at work. I believe my dad used a Pentium which did have a 640x480 display (or more) at work. I remember going into his office at the school holidays and been blown away at the graphics: it could show proper colour photographs at a decent resolution and could play real sound, rather than the beeps and squawks of the PC speaker.

Perhaps you're right about what was mainstream at work and for those with money but my family could only afford a low end machine, so I thought it was the norm.

[stj]

i use freedos sometimes.

http://www.freedos.org/

because it's 32bit and uses fat32 and runs on modern hardware.
in case anybody is wondering, i use it for repair work on dos based embeded systems.
i extract the custommer software, then rebuild a new drive with freedos and restore the applications.
it boots faster afterwards and i can use things like 4gig CF-cards without having to split partitions.

[Zero999]

i use freedos sometimes.

http://www.freedos.org/

because it's 32bit and uses fat32 and runs on modern hardware.
in case anybody is wondering, i use it for repair work on dos based embeded systems.
i extract the custommer software, then rebuild a new drive with freedos and restore the applications.
it boots faster afterwards and i can use things like 4gig CF-cards without having to split partitions.

It may have a DOS extender and FAT32 support, but I'm pretty sure FreeDOS is mostly 16-bit, at least command.com still is.

FreeDOS-32 is 32-bit but it doesn't seem to be anywhere near finished and appears to no longer be in development. Could it be vapourware?
http://freedos-32.sourceforge.net/

[stj]

check the link i gave.
they may have dumped sourceforge after the adware/malware installers episode.
that drove a lot of people from sourceforge to places like github & savanna
 

[Ampera]

I dislike FreeDOS and the CDU MS-DOS 7.1 because of all the stupid 32-bit stuff and FAT32 support. It's just not needed for DOS. If you need more than 2GB of hard disk space per partition, then you should use Windows.

[Zero999]

check the link i gave.
they may have dumped sourceforge after the adware/malware installers episode.
that drove a lot of people from sourceforge to places like github & savanna

I did and there's nothing on their site to suggest FreeDOS is a 32-bit OS. I ran it fairly recently, under DOSEmu and am pretty sure it has a 16-bit kernel.

[stj]

I dislike FreeDOS and the CDU MS-DOS 7.1 because of all the stupid 32-bit stuff and FAT32 support. It's just not needed for DOS. If you need more than 2GB of hard disk space per partition, then you should use Windows.

pretty dumb atitude.

if your in the repair industry and you have a 4gig storage and a 32bit board then using multiple partitions and 16bit code is just stupid.
so is bloating the system with windows filth.
and yes, that's what i think of windows.

btw, you cant have an o.s. that does stuff in the background (windows) because the equipment is shutdown by cutting the power - not pressing a button and waiting for the crap o.s. to flush it's caches and finish what it probably shouldnt have been doing in the first place!!!

[tooki]

I think you guys need to revise your timelines a tiny bit, your memory is a bit hazy, I reckon -- by 1994, 640x480@8 bit was not unusual at the low end, and the very high end was actually SXGA (1280x1024).  Remember, Windows 3.0 (released in 1990) was most commonly used with 640x480@4-bit, but 8-bit was common during its lifespan. By 1995, when Windows 95 came out, 800x600@8-bit was the recommended configuration, and 1024x768 was not unusual on beefier systems.

Looking at the ads in the Sept. 1994 issue of BYTE, I see that even ordinary laptops had 640x480 and 800x600 displays at 8-bit. The high end for Windows PCs (not even counting high-end workstations like Intergraph and Sun) was 24-bit color at SXGA, 3D acceleration was just beginning to hit the scene. It looks like the mainstream was unaccelerated 1MB SVGA, which allowed for 800x600@16-bit, with the CPU being the real bottleneck in that mode.

(For reference on the Mac side, the 1987 Mac II was the first to support external displays, and it supported 640x480 at 4-bit by default, 8-bit with VRAM upgrade. By 1991, high end Macs, namely the Quadra line, supported 1152x870@4-bit, and 8-bit with a VRAM upgrade. By late 1993, even some consumer Macs like the Performa 475 supported 1152x870@4-bit out of the box and 8-bit with added VRAM. Of course, such a display cost many times more than the consumer computer itself!)

What was cutting edge and what was common are two entirely different things. You have to remember, in the early 90's PCs were still not quite affordable for everyone. If you were a regular user on a budget you basically had two options: Buy a used name brand PC from someone upgrading (usually through classified ads) *or* buy a new mid-range no-name system from a local shop or computer show.

Anyway, in early 1994 the most common configuration by far (that the majority of people would have been capable running) would have been 640x480. I saw some statistics on this recently (common screen resolution from 1982 to 2016) but can't find it at the moment. One interesting thing about it was how VGA was by far the most popular resolution from shortly after its introduction up until just after Windows 95 came out; since, as you said, it recommended at least SVGA resolution. (It was that plus RAM prices falling that finally pushed people to upgrade I think.)

I mean, with the way Windows 3.1 ran programs there was little need for large screen resolutions for most home users.

I addressed what was cutting edge in my comment. The whole point was that hero999 originally said 640x480@8bit was a "quite high" resolution for 1994, which is utter nonsense: it was the entry level by then.

Obviously you lot must have had more money than my family had, back when I got my first PC at the age of 12: a 386 with a VGA card. I suppose a lot of you were working. There's a different to what the average family could afford and what you would have used at work. I believe my dad used a Pentium which did have a 640x480 display (or more) at work. I remember going into his office at the school holidays and been blown away at the graphics: it could show proper colour photographs at a decent resolution and could play real sound, rather than the beeps and squawks of the PC speaker.

Perhaps you're right about what was mainstream at work and for those with money but my family could only afford a low end machine, so I thought it was the norm.

We didn't get a computer till I was 12, either!

But you are saying simultaneously that a) 640x480 was a high-end resolution, and b) that your modest first PC had a VGA card: that's 640x480.

 

[Zero999]

I think you guys need to revise your timelines a tiny bit, your memory is a bit hazy, I reckon -- by 1994, 640x480@8 bit was not unusual at the low end, and the very high end was actually SXGA (1280x1024).  Remember, Windows 3.0 (released in 1990) was most commonly used with 640x480@4-bit, but 8-bit was common during its lifespan. By 1995, when Windows 95 came out, 800x600@8-bit was the recommended configuration, and 1024x768 was not unusual on beefier systems.

Looking at the ads in the Sept. 1994 issue of BYTE, I see that even ordinary laptops had 640x480 and 800x600 displays at 8-bit. The high end for Windows PCs (not even counting high-end workstations like Intergraph and Sun) was 24-bit color at SXGA, 3D acceleration was just beginning to hit the scene. It looks like the mainstream was unaccelerated 1MB SVGA, which allowed for 800x600@16-bit, with the CPU being the real bottleneck in that mode.

(For reference on the Mac side, the 1987 Mac II was the first to support external displays, and it supported 640x480 at 4-bit by default, 8-bit with VRAM upgrade. By 1991, high end Macs, namely the Quadra line, supported 1152x870@4-bit, and 8-bit with a VRAM upgrade. By late 1993, even some consumer Macs like the Performa 475 supported 1152x870@4-bit out of the box and 8-bit with added VRAM. Of course, such a display cost many times more than the consumer computer itself!)

What was cutting edge and what was common are two entirely different things. You have to remember, in the early 90's PCs were still not quite affordable for everyone. If you were a regular user on a budget you basically had two options: Buy a used name brand PC from someone upgrading (usually through classified ads) *or* buy a new mid-range no-name system from a local shop or computer show.

Anyway, in early 1994 the most common configuration by far (that the majority of people would have been capable running) would have been 640x480. I saw some statistics on this recently (common screen resolution from 1982 to 2016) but can't find it at the moment. One interesting thing about it was how VGA was by far the most popular resolution from shortly after its introduction up until just after Windows 95 came out; since, as you said, it recommended at least SVGA resolution. (It was that plus RAM prices falling that finally pushed people to upgrade I think.)

I mean, with the way Windows 3.1 ran programs there was little need for large screen resolutions for most home users.

I addressed what was cutting edge in my comment. The whole point was that hero999 originally said 640x480@8bit was a "quite high" resolution for 1994, which is utter nonsense: it was the entry level by then.

Obviously you lot must have had more money than my family had, back when I got my first PC at the age of 12: a 386 with a VGA card. I suppose a lot of you were working. There's a different to what the average family could afford and what you would have used at work. I believe my dad used a Pentium which did have a 640x480 display (or more) at work. I remember going into his office at the school holidays and been blown away at the graphics: it could show proper colour photographs at a decent resolution and could play real sound, rather than the beeps and squawks of the PC speaker.

Perhaps you're right about what was mainstream at work and for those with money but my family could only afford a low end machine, so I thought it was the norm.

We didn't get a computer till I was 12, either!

But you are saying simultaneously that a) 640x480 was a high-end resolution, and b) that your modest first PC had a VGA card: that's 640x480.

 

Yes.

a) 640x480 8-bit 256 colours was high end compared to what my family could afford.

b) 640x480 4-bit 16 colours was all my family could afford.

[timb]

I think you guys need to revise your timelines a tiny bit, your memory is a bit hazy, I reckon -- by 1994, 640x480@8 bit was not unusual at the low end, and the very high end was actually SXGA (1280x1024).  Remember, Windows 3.0 (released in 1990) was most commonly used with 640x480@4-bit, but 8-bit was common during its lifespan. By 1995, when Windows 95 came out, 800x600@8-bit was the recommended configuration, and 1024x768 was not unusual on beefier systems.

Looking at the ads in the Sept. 1994 issue of BYTE, I see that even ordinary laptops had 640x480 and 800x600 displays at 8-bit. The high end for Windows PCs (not even counting high-end workstations like Intergraph and Sun) was 24-bit color at SXGA, 3D acceleration was just beginning to hit the scene. It looks like the mainstream was unaccelerated 1MB SVGA, which allowed for 800x600@16-bit, with the CPU being the real bottleneck in that mode.

(For reference on the Mac side, the 1987 Mac II was the first to support external displays, and it supported 640x480 at 4-bit by default, 8-bit with VRAM upgrade. By 1991, high end Macs, namely the Quadra line, supported 1152x870@4-bit, and 8-bit with a VRAM upgrade. By late 1993, even some consumer Macs like the Performa 475 supported 1152x870@4-bit out of the box and 8-bit with added VRAM. Of course, such a display cost many times more than the consumer computer itself!)

What was cutting edge and what was common are two entirely different things. You have to remember, in the early 90's PCs were still not quite affordable for everyone. If you were a regular user on a budget you basically had two options: Buy a used name brand PC from someone upgrading (usually through classified ads) *or* buy a new mid-range no-name system from a local shop or computer show.

Anyway, in early 1994 the most common configuration by far (that the majority of people would have been capable running) would have been 640x480. I saw some statistics on this recently (common screen resolution from 1982 to 2016) but can't find it at the moment. One interesting thing about it was how VGA was by far the most popular resolution from shortly after its introduction up until just after Windows 95 came out; since, as you said, it recommended at least SVGA resolution. (It was that plus RAM prices falling that finally pushed people to upgrade I think.)

I mean, with the way Windows 3.1 ran programs there was little need for large screen resolutions for most home users.

I addressed what was cutting edge in my comment. The whole point was that hero999 originally said 640x480@8bit was a "quite high" resolution for 1994, which is utter nonsense: it was the entry level by then.

Obviously you lot must have had more money than my family had, back when I got my first PC at the age of 12: a 386 with a VGA card. I suppose a lot of you were working. There's a different to what the average family could afford and what you would have used at work. I believe my dad used a Pentium which did have a 640x480 display (or more) at work. I remember going into his office at the school holidays and been blown away at the graphics: it could show proper colour photographs at a decent resolution and could play real sound, rather than the beeps and squawks of the PC speaker.

Perhaps you're right about what was mainstream at work and for those with money but my family could only afford a low end machine, so I thought it was the norm.

We didn't get a computer till I was 12, either!

But you are saying simultaneously that a) 640x480 was a high-end resolution, and b) that your modest first PC had a VGA card: that's 640x480.

 

I don't think anyone is saying 640x480 was a high end resolution in 1994 (I'm certainly not saying that), however it was by far the most *common* resolution at that time. As I said before, PCs were expensive back then, so most first time home users either bought older used systems *or* a no-name mid to low tier system from a local shop.

Remember, this was a time when 8MB of RAM cost $400!

I was 10 (late-93) when we got our first system: A used Packard Bell 386SX. I still remember going out with my dad to get it, then the next day going to Costco and picking up a Gravis Joystick and a copy of Flight Simulator 4.0! He also got a 387 co-processor not long after, which helped speed up Flight Sim. I remember saving for several months to buy a sound card (which I got from Radio Shack; it was a RS branded Sound Blaster clone, with speakers and a bunch of shareware, including Wolf 3D).

Good times, good times. :}

[tooki]

I think you guys need to revise your timelines a tiny bit, your memory is a bit hazy, I reckon -- by 1994, 640x480@8 bit was not unusual at the low end, and the very high end was actually SXGA (1280x1024).  Remember, Windows 3.0 (released in 1990) was most commonly used with 640x480@4-bit, but 8-bit was common during its lifespan. By 1995, when Windows 95 came out, 800x600@8-bit was the recommended configuration, and 1024x768 was not unusual on beefier systems.

Looking at the ads in the Sept. 1994 issue of BYTE, I see that even ordinary laptops had 640x480 and 800x600 displays at 8-bit. The high end for Windows PCs (not even counting high-end workstations like Intergraph and Sun) was 24-bit color at SXGA, 3D acceleration was just beginning to hit the scene. It looks like the mainstream was unaccelerated 1MB SVGA, which allowed for 800x600@16-bit, with the CPU being the real bottleneck in that mode.

(For reference on the Mac side, the 1987 Mac II was the first to support external displays, and it supported 640x480 at 4-bit by default, 8-bit with VRAM upgrade. By 1991, high end Macs, namely the Quadra line, supported 1152x870@4-bit, and 8-bit with a VRAM upgrade. By late 1993, even some consumer Macs like the Performa 475 supported 1152x870@4-bit out of the box and 8-bit with added VRAM. Of course, such a display cost many times more than the consumer computer itself!)

What was cutting edge and what was common are two entirely different things. You have to remember, in the early 90's PCs were still not quite affordable for everyone. If you were a regular user on a budget you basically had two options: Buy a used name brand PC from someone upgrading (usually through classified ads) *or* buy a new mid-range no-name system from a local shop or computer show.

Anyway, in early 1994 the most common configuration by far (that the majority of people would have been capable running) would have been 640x480. I saw some statistics on this recently (common screen resolution from 1982 to 2016) but can't find it at the moment. One interesting thing about it was how VGA was by far the most popular resolution from shortly after its introduction up until just after Windows 95 came out; since, as you said, it recommended at least SVGA resolution. (It was that plus RAM prices falling that finally pushed people to upgrade I think.)

I mean, with the way Windows 3.1 ran programs there was little need for large screen resolutions for most home users.

I addressed what was cutting edge in my comment. The whole point was that hero999 originally said 640x480@8bit was a "quite high" resolution for 1994, which is utter nonsense: it was the entry level by then.

Obviously you lot must have had more money than my family had, back when I got my first PC at the age of 12: a 386 with a VGA card. I suppose a lot of you were working. There's a different to what the average family could afford and what you would have used at work. I believe my dad used a Pentium which did have a 640x480 display (or more) at work. I remember going into his office at the school holidays and been blown away at the graphics: it could show proper colour photographs at a decent resolution and could play real sound, rather than the beeps and squawks of the PC speaker.

Perhaps you're right about what was mainstream at work and for those with money but my family could only afford a low end machine, so I thought it was the norm.

We didn't get a computer till I was 12, either!

But you are saying simultaneously that a) 640x480 was a high-end resolution, and b) that your modest first PC had a VGA card: that's 640x480.

 

I don't think anyone is saying 640x480 was a high end resolution in 1994 (I'm certainly not saying that), however it was by far the most *common* resolution at that time. As I said before, PCs were expensive back then, so most first time home users either bought older used systems *or* a no-name mid to low tier system from a local shop.

Remember, this was a time when 8MB of RAM cost $400!

It's precisely what hero999 said:

On a 486, Windows, or even OS/2 is not that great of an idea. Of course it can run it, but I legitimately had trouble running Sim Tower, which is by no means a demanding game.

Have you looked at the minimum requirements for that game? They were quite high for a PC that age: 8-bit colours would have meant a resolution of at least 640x480 (Windows didn't support 320x200 8-bit until 95) which was quite high for a PC of 1994 vintage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimTower#Development

That says, paraphrased: "640x480, which was quite high for 1994."

To which I say: no, it wasn't, 640x480 was absolutely standard back then, even at the low end. High end was higher: 800x600 and 1024x768 (with truly high-end systems going beyond that, even), and I already provided evidence to support that my recollection is correct. An already-outdated-then system might have not supported 8-bit color at 640x480 resolution, but the claim here was that the resolution was high end, but it demonstrably was not.

I don't need to be reminded of what stuff cost then: we've already established that my memory of that era is more accurate than you guys', plus I literally just reviewed a magazine of the era to refresh my memory and make sure I wasn't remembering wrong. (Link is still in my post.)

[Zero999]

I think you guys need to revise your timelines a tiny bit, your memory is a bit hazy, I reckon -- by 1994, 640x480@8 bit was not unusual at the low end, and the very high end was actually SXGA (1280x1024).  Remember, Windows 3.0 (released in 1990) was most commonly used with 640x480@4-bit, but 8-bit was common during its lifespan. By 1995, when Windows 95 came out, 800x600@8-bit was the recommended configuration, and 1024x768 was not unusual on beefier systems.

Looking at the ads in the Sept. 1994 issue of BYTE, I see that even ordinary laptops had 640x480 and 800x600 displays at 8-bit. The high end for Windows PCs (not even counting high-end workstations like Intergraph and Sun) was 24-bit color at SXGA, 3D acceleration was just beginning to hit the scene. It looks like the mainstream was unaccelerated 1MB SVGA, which allowed for 800x600@16-bit, with the CPU being the real bottleneck in that mode.

(For reference on the Mac side, the 1987 Mac II was the first to support external displays, and it supported 640x480 at 4-bit by default, 8-bit with VRAM upgrade. By 1991, high end Macs, namely the Quadra line, supported 1152x870@4-bit, and 8-bit with a VRAM upgrade. By late 1993, even some consumer Macs like the Performa 475 supported 1152x870@4-bit out of the box and 8-bit with added VRAM. Of course, such a display cost many times more than the consumer computer itself!)

What was cutting edge and what was common are two entirely different things. You have to remember, in the early 90's PCs were still not quite affordable for everyone. If you were a regular user on a budget you basically had two options: Buy a used name brand PC from someone upgrading (usually through classified ads) *or* buy a new mid-range no-name system from a local shop or computer show.

Anyway, in early 1994 the most common configuration by far (that the majority of people would have been capable running) would have been 640x480. I saw some statistics on this recently (common screen resolution from 1982 to 2016) but can't find it at the moment. One interesting thing about it was how VGA was by far the most popular resolution from shortly after its introduction up until just after Windows 95 came out; since, as you said, it recommended at least SVGA resolution. (It was that plus RAM prices falling that finally pushed people to upgrade I think.)

I mean, with the way Windows 3.1 ran programs there was little need for large screen resolutions for most home users.

I addressed what was cutting edge in my comment. The whole point was that hero999 originally said 640x480@8bit was a "quite high" resolution for 1994, which is utter nonsense: it was the entry level by then.

Obviously you lot must have had more money than my family had, back when I got my first PC at the age of 12: a 386 with a VGA card. I suppose a lot of you were working. There's a different to what the average family could afford and what you would have used at work. I believe my dad used a Pentium which did have a 640x480 display (or more) at work. I remember going into his office at the school holidays and been blown away at the graphics: it could show proper colour photographs at a decent resolution and could play real sound, rather than the beeps and squawks of the PC speaker.

Perhaps you're right about what was mainstream at work and for those with money but my family could only afford a low end machine, so I thought it was the norm.

We didn't get a computer till I was 12, either!

But you are saying simultaneously that a) 640x480 was a high-end resolution, and b) that your modest first PC had a VGA card: that's 640x480.

 

I don't think anyone is saying 640x480 was a high end resolution in 1994 (I'm certainly not saying that), however it was by far the most *common* resolution at that time. As I said before, PCs were expensive back then, so most first time home users either bought older used systems *or* a no-name mid to low tier system from a local shop.

Remember, this was a time when 8MB of RAM cost $400!

It's precisely what hero999 said:

On a 486, Windows, or even OS/2 is not that great of an idea. Of course it can run it, but I legitimately had trouble running Sim Tower, which is by no means a demanding game.

Have you looked at the minimum requirements for that game? They were quite high for a PC that age: 8-bit colours would have meant a resolution of at least 640x480 (Windows didn't support 320x200 8-bit until 95) which was quite high for a PC of 1994 vintage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimTower#Development

That says, paraphrased: "640x480, which was quite high for 1994."

To which I say: no, it wasn't, 640x480 was absolutely standard back then, even at the low end. High end was higher: 800x600 and 1024x768 (with truly high-end systems going beyond that, even), and I already provided evidence to support that my recollection is correct. An already-outdated-then system might have not supported 8-bit color at 640x480 resolution, but the claim here was that the resolution was high end, but it demonstrably was not.

I don't need to be reminded of what stuff cost then: we've already established that my memory of that era is more accurate than you guys', plus I literally just reviewed a magazine of the era to refresh my memory and make sure I wasn't remembering wrong. (Link is still in my post.)

No one made any claims about 640x480 being high end in 1994. Indeed, old CGA cards had been capable of that resolution in 1 bit per pixel monochrome mode for many years.

What you've missed is the colour depth. In 1994 most machines, which the average family could afford, came with a VGA card which was only capable of 16 colours in 640x480 resolution. It you read my post you quoted again, you'll see I specifically mentioned 8-bit colour depth at 640x480. I'm not denying that 8-bit colour or even more and at higher resolutions than 640x480, were available back than, just that it was prohibitively expensive for most people.

[Ampera]

I dislike FreeDOS and the CDU MS-DOS 7.1 because of all the stupid 32-bit stuff and FAT32 support. It's just not needed for DOS. If you need more than 2GB of hard disk space per partition, then you should use Windows.

pretty dumb atitude.

if your in the repair industry and you have a 4gig storage and a 32bit board then using multiple partitions and 16bit code is just stupid.
so is bloating the system with windows filth.
and yes, that's what i think of windows.

btw, you cant have an o.s. that does stuff in the background (windows) because the equipment is shutdown by cutting the power - not pressing a button and waiting for the crap o.s. to flush it's caches and finish what it probably shouldnt have been doing in the first place!!!

The repair industry? I'm unsure as to what you mean by that.

If you are referring to embedded applications, Linux is probably the operating system of choice in that field. It's FAR superior to DOS in every respect. DOS is simple, lightweight, and supported, but I wouldn't imagine any sane designer jumping to it for applications that actually and seriously need more than 2GB of storage per partition.

When I think of it, in any real application, there is always going to be a better option when you escape the bounds of traditional DOS. Linux is good, and most microcontrollers are done using ASM or a higher level language on top of a basic operating system, or through compiled code.

FreeDOS and CDU DOS are VERY undercooked for any of that. They are unstable, the FAT32 implementation is buggy and breaks many DOS applications in some way, and in all, DOS isn't that stable of a platform to begin with. It's very easy to crash DOS (You could probably do it in 5-10 seconds using the right commands). I'm not saying it's a terrible idea for embedded use, but it's a terrible idea for high performance embedded use that for whatever reason needs more than 2GB per partition.

[Zero999]

I dislike FreeDOS and the CDU MS-DOS 7.1 because of all the stupid 32-bit stuff and FAT32 support. It's just not needed for DOS. If you need more than 2GB of hard disk space per partition, then you should use Windows.

pretty dumb atitude.

if your in the repair industry and you have a 4gig storage and a 32bit board then using multiple partitions and 16bit code is just stupid.
so is bloating the system with windows filth.
and yes, that's what i think of windows.

btw, you cant have an o.s. that does stuff in the background (windows) because the equipment is shutdown by cutting the power - not pressing a button and waiting for the crap o.s. to flush it's caches and finish what it probably shouldnt have been doing in the first place!!!

The repair industry? I'm unsure as to what you mean by that.

If you are referring to embedded applications, Linux is probably the operating system of choice in that field. It's FAR superior to DOS in every respect. DOS is simple, lightweight, and supported, but I wouldn't imagine any sane designer jumping to it for applications that actually and seriously need more than 2GB of storage per partition.

When I think of it, in any real application, there is always going to be a better option when you escape the bounds of traditional DOS. Linux is good, and most microcontrollers are done using ASM or a higher level language on top of a basic operating system, or through compiled code.

FreeDOS and CDU DOS are VERY undercooked for any of that. They are unstable, the FAT32 implementation is buggy and breaks many DOS applications in some way, and in all, DOS isn't that stable of a platform to begin with. It's very easy to crash DOS (You could probably do it in 5-10 seconds using the right commands). I'm not saying it's a terrible idea for embedded use, but it's a terrible idea for high performance embedded use that for whatever reason needs more than 2GB per partition.

I think what stj is saying is that for some applications, a real time, i.e. only one process at a time, operating system is required. Linux and Windows are not real time OSes, meaning they have a lot of processes running in the background, which can cause problems with things such as timing and higher power consumption, than necessary, in certain applications.

I'm curious about the problems you've experienced with FreeDOS? I've found it to be very good, but I've only run it under an emulator for running old DOS programs, never on real hardware.

[tooki]

I think you guys need to revise your timelines a tiny bit, your memory is a bit hazy, I reckon -- by 1994, 640x480@8 bit was not unusual at the low end, and the very high end was actually SXGA (1280x1024).  Remember, Windows 3.0 (released in 1990) was most commonly used with 640x480@4-bit, but 8-bit was common during its lifespan. By 1995, when Windows 95 came out, 800x600@8-bit was the recommended configuration, and 1024x768 was not unusual on beefier systems.

Looking at the ads in the Sept. 1994 issue of BYTE, I see that even ordinary laptops had 640x480 and 800x600 displays at 8-bit. The high end for Windows PCs (not even counting high-end workstations like Intergraph and Sun) was 24-bit color at SXGA, 3D acceleration was just beginning to hit the scene. It looks like the mainstream was unaccelerated 1MB SVGA, which allowed for 800x600@16-bit, with the CPU being the real bottleneck in that mode.

(For reference on the Mac side, the 1987 Mac II was the first to support external displays, and it supported 640x480 at 4-bit by default, 8-bit with VRAM upgrade. By 1991, high end Macs, namely the Quadra line, supported 1152x870@4-bit, and 8-bit with a VRAM upgrade. By late 1993, even some consumer Macs like the Performa 475 supported 1152x870@4-bit out of the box and 8-bit with added VRAM. Of course, such a display cost many times more than the consumer computer itself!)

What was cutting edge and what was common are two entirely different things. You have to remember, in the early 90's PCs were still not quite affordable for everyone. If you were a regular user on a budget you basically had two options: Buy a used name brand PC from someone upgrading (usually through classified ads) *or* buy a new mid-range no-name system from a local shop or computer show.

Anyway, in early 1994 the most common configuration by far (that the majority of people would have been capable running) would have been 640x480. I saw some statistics on this recently (common screen resolution from 1982 to 2016) but can't find it at the moment. One interesting thing about it was how VGA was by far the most popular resolution from shortly after its introduction up until just after Windows 95 came out; since, as you said, it recommended at least SVGA resolution. (It was that plus RAM prices falling that finally pushed people to upgrade I think.)

I mean, with the way Windows 3.1 ran programs there was little need for large screen resolutions for most home users.

I addressed what was cutting edge in my comment. The whole point was that hero999 originally said 640x480@8bit was a "quite high" resolution for 1994, which is utter nonsense: it was the entry level by then.

Obviously you lot must have had more money than my family had, back when I got my first PC at the age of 12: a 386 with a VGA card. I suppose a lot of you were working. There's a different to what the average family could afford and what you would have used at work. I believe my dad used a Pentium which did have a 640x480 display (or more) at work. I remember going into his office at the school holidays and been blown away at the graphics: it could show proper colour photographs at a decent resolution and could play real sound, rather than the beeps and squawks of the PC speaker.

Perhaps you're right about what was mainstream at work and for those with money but my family could only afford a low end machine, so I thought it was the norm.

We didn't get a computer till I was 12, either!

But you are saying simultaneously that a) 640x480 was a high-end resolution, and b) that your modest first PC had a VGA card: that's 640x480.

 

I don't think anyone is saying 640x480 was a high end resolution in 1994 (I'm certainly not saying that), however it was by far the most *common* resolution at that time. As I said before, PCs were expensive back then, so most first time home users either bought older used systems *or* a no-name mid to low tier system from a local shop.

Remember, this was a time when 8MB of RAM cost $400!

It's precisely what hero999 said:

On a 486, Windows, or even OS/2 is not that great of an idea. Of course it can run it, but I legitimately had trouble running Sim Tower, which is by no means a demanding game.

Have you looked at the minimum requirements for that game? They were quite high for a PC that age: 8-bit colours would have meant a resolution of at least 640x480 (Windows didn't support 320x200 8-bit until 95) which was quite high for a PC of 1994 vintage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimTower#Development

That says, paraphrased: "640x480, which was quite high for 1994."

To which I say: no, it wasn't, 640x480 was absolutely standard back then, even at the low end. High end was higher: 800x600 and 1024x768 (with truly high-end systems going beyond that, even), and I already provided evidence to support that my recollection is correct. An already-outdated-then system might have not supported 8-bit color at 640x480 resolution, but the claim here was that the resolution was high end, but it demonstrably was not.

I don't need to be reminded of what stuff cost then: we've already established that my memory of that era is more accurate than you guys', plus I literally just reviewed a magazine of the era to refresh my memory and make sure I wasn't remembering wrong. (Link is still in my post.)

No one made any claims about 640x480 being high end in 1994. Indeed, old CGA cards had been capable of that resolution in 1 bit per pixel monochrome mode for many years.

What you've missed is the colour depth. In 1994 most machines, which the average family could afford, came with a VGA card which was only capable of 16 colours in 640x480 resolution. It you read my post you quoted again, you'll see I specifically mentioned 8-bit colour depth at 640x480. I'm not denying that 8-bit colour or even more and at higher resolutions than 640x480, were available back than, just that it was prohibitively expensive for most people.

I didn't miss the color depth, I even addressed it. Your sentence used a subordinate clause stating that 640x480 was high end (the wording is such that the color depth is not a part of the claim). If that's not what you meant, well, it is what you wrote.

[Don Hills]

...  The repair industry? I'm unsure as to what you mean by that. ...

There are many industrial systems (CNC machines etc) that have PC based controllers running DOS. The PC often dies when the machine itself has many years of useful life left. Spare parts for the PC are usually long since unobtainable, so the challenge is to replace the PC with a modern equivalent, capable of running the original control software. That's the repair industry he was referring to.

[stj]

...  The repair industry? I'm unsure as to what you mean by that. ...

There are many industrial systems (CNC machines etc) that have PC based controllers running DOS. The PC often dies when the machine itself has many years of useful life left. Spare parts for the PC are usually long since unobtainable, so the challenge is to replace the PC with a modern equivalent, capable of running the original control software. That's the repair industry he was referring to.

exactly,
CNC's, exhaust/engine analysers, slot machines, some Megatouch stuff.
there's loads of expensive stuff out there that has old pc's in them

[Ampera]

I dislike FreeDOS and the CDU MS-DOS 7.1 because of all the stupid 32-bit stuff and FAT32 support. It's just not needed for DOS. If you need more than 2GB of hard disk space per partition, then you should use Windows.

pretty dumb atitude.

if your in the repair industry and you have a 4gig storage and a 32bit board then using multiple partitions and 16bit code is just stupid.
so is bloating the system with windows filth.
and yes, that's what i think of windows.

btw, you cant have an o.s. that does stuff in the background (windows) because the equipment is shutdown by cutting the power - not pressing a button and waiting for the crap o.s. to flush it's caches and finish what it probably shouldnt have been doing in the first place!!!

The repair industry? I'm unsure as to what you mean by that.

If you are referring to embedded applications, Linux is probably the operating system of choice in that field. It's FAR superior to DOS in every respect. DOS is simple, lightweight, and supported, but I wouldn't imagine any sane designer jumping to it for applications that actually and seriously need more than 2GB of storage per partition.

When I think of it, in any real application, there is always going to be a better option when you escape the bounds of traditional DOS. Linux is good, and most microcontrollers are done using ASM or a higher level language on top of a basic operating system, or through compiled code.

FreeDOS and CDU DOS are VERY undercooked for any of that. They are unstable, the FAT32 implementation is buggy and breaks many DOS applications in some way, and in all, DOS isn't that stable of a platform to begin with. It's very easy to crash DOS (You could probably do it in 5-10 seconds using the right commands). I'm not saying it's a terrible idea for embedded use, but it's a terrible idea for high performance embedded use that for whatever reason needs more than 2GB per partition.

I think what stj is saying is that for some applications, a real time, i.e. only one process at a time, operating system is required. Linux and Windows are not real time OSes, meaning they have a lot of processes running in the background, which can cause problems with things such as timing and higher power consumption, than necessary, in certain applications.

I'm curious about the problems you've experienced with FreeDOS? I've found it to be very good, but I've only run it under an emulator for running old DOS programs, never on real hardware.

That I did not think of.

My personal issues with FreeDOS and CDU DOS is with compatibility with anything using a FAT32 partition. Especially programs like windows, and other things that need direct drive access, FAT32 breaks it.

[Zero999]

I dislike FreeDOS and the CDU MS-DOS 7.1 because of all the stupid 32-bit stuff and FAT32 support. It's just not needed for DOS. If you need more than 2GB of hard disk space per partition, then you should use Windows.

pretty dumb atitude.

if your in the repair industry and you have a 4gig storage and a 32bit board then using multiple partitions and 16bit code is just stupid.
so is bloating the system with windows filth.
and yes, that's what i think of windows.

btw, you cant have an o.s. that does stuff in the background (windows) because the equipment is shutdown by cutting the power - not pressing a button and waiting for the crap o.s. to flush it's caches and finish what it probably shouldnt have been doing in the first place!!!

The repair industry? I'm unsure as to what you mean by that.

If you are referring to embedded applications, Linux is probably the operating system of choice in that field. It's FAR superior to DOS in every respect. DOS is simple, lightweight, and supported, but I wouldn't imagine any sane designer jumping to it for applications that actually and seriously need more than 2GB of storage per partition.

When I think of it, in any real application, there is always going to be a better option when you escape the bounds of traditional DOS. Linux is good, and most microcontrollers are done using ASM or a higher level language on top of a basic operating system, or through compiled code.

FreeDOS and CDU DOS are VERY undercooked for any of that. They are unstable, the FAT32 implementation is buggy and breaks many DOS applications in some way, and in all, DOS isn't that stable of a platform to begin with. It's very easy to crash DOS (You could probably do it in 5-10 seconds using the right commands). I'm not saying it's a terrible idea for embedded use, but it's a terrible idea for high performance embedded use that for whatever reason needs more than 2GB per partition.

I think what stj is saying is that for some applications, a real time, i.e. only one process at a time, operating system is required. Linux and Windows are not real time OSes, meaning they have a lot of processes running in the background, which can cause problems with things such as timing and higher power consumption, than necessary, in certain applications.

I'm curious about the problems you've experienced with FreeDOS? I've found it to be very good, but I've only run it under an emulator for running old DOS programs, never on real hardware.

That I did not think of.

My personal issues with FreeDOS and CDU DOS is with compatibility with anything using a FAT32 partition. Especially programs like windows, and other things that need direct drive access, FAT32 breaks it.

What's CDU DOS? I've never heard of it and Google doesn't return any results in English.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=CDU+DOS&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=Wix-Wb-_HMyBgAbmypr4Ag

[Ampera]

It's my shortening of MS-DOS 7.1 by the China DOS Union.


Basically, it was made by the CDU as a hacked apart copy of the ACTUAL DOS 7.1, which is just the kernel? version of 95B/98SE (think the NT version number for modern Windows). It has full LFN and FAT32 support, but enabling either of those is notoriously buggy. It breaks tons of stuff,  and it's not exactly kosher nor legal (They even dare to put it under a GNU GPL licence, wonder how well that would stand up in any court anywhere)

I still maintain the statement, that for the average desktop user outside of some REALLY weird use case, FAT32 on DOS is never really a good idea. If your desktop PC has more space than DOS can handle, then it's time to switch over to something better.

[timb]

I don't need to be reminded of what stuff cost then: we've already established that my memory of that era is more accurate than you guys', plus I literally just reviewed a magazine of the era to refresh my memory and make sure I wasn't remembering wrong. (Link is still in my post.)

Computer magazines in that era liked to review just released (or soon to be released) high end systems. Occasionally they would feature low or mid range systems, but generally the focus was on cutting edge.

Nobody is saying resolutions higher than 640x480 weren't available in 1994. They certainly were. What we're saying, and this is the important bit you need to focus on, is that most home users still ran at 640x480, due mainly to cost. Memory was still expensive, so getting a video card and monitor capable of showing 800x600 or 1024x768 @ 16bpp and a refresh rate greater than (or equal to) 60Hz was still very expensive.

It wasn't until Windows 95, the rise in popularity of the Internet and the bottom falling out of the memory industry did screen resolutions start increasing on the average consumer's PC.

You might have a magazine from 1994, but I have actual hard data showing the most used screen resolutions from the early-80's to 2016. VGA resolution was king until 1995/96, when 800x600 started taking over.

Again, just because something was available in 1994, doesn't mean it was economically viable for everyone.

I mean, look at the timeframe. What was there that really required a resolution higher than VGA for the average PC user in 1994? It's not like you could run apps side by side in Windows 3.11. Webpages were just text and a few GIFs. QuickTime and Indigo videos were QVGA resolution due to the processor power required to decode the compression. Consumers weren't editing digital photos back then. Basically, you wrote documents in Word Perfect (or Wors), worked on spreadsheets in Lotus (or Excel), balanced your checkbook with QuickBooks and played games (a lot of which still used DOS for maximum performance and used VGA resolutions, at most).

So yes, in 1994 VGA *was* the highest resolution your average consumer used on a PC.

[Naguissa]

I don't need to be reminded of what stuff cost then: we've already established that my memory of that era is more accurate than you guys', plus I literally just reviewed a magazine of the era to refresh my memory and make sure I wasn't remembering wrong. (Link is still in my post.)

Computer magazines in that era liked to review just released (or soon to be released) high end systems. Occasionally they would feature low or mid range systems, but generally the focus was on cutting edge.

Nobody is saying resolutions higher than 640x480 weren't available in 1994. They certainly were. What we're saying, and this is the important bit you need to focus on, is that most home users still ran at 640x480, due mainly to cost. Memory was still expensive, so getting a video card and monitor capable of showing 800x600 or 1024x768 @ 16bpp and a refresh rate greater than (or equal to) 60Hz was still very expensive.

It wasn't until Windows 95, the rise in popularity of the Internet and the bottom falling out of the memory industry did screen resolutions start increasing on the average consumer's PC.

You might have a magazine from 1994, but I have actual hard data showing the most used screen resolutions from the early-80's to 2016. VGA resolution was king until 1995/96, when 800x600 started taking over.

Again, just because something was available in 1994, doesn't mean it was economically viable for everyone.

I mean, look at the timeframe. What was there that really required a resolution higher than VGA for the average PC user in 1994? It's not like you could run apps side by side in Windows 3.11. Webpages were just text and a few GIFs. QuickTime and Indigo videos were QVGA resolution due to the processor power required to decode the compression. Consumers weren't editing digital photos back then. Basically, you wrote documents in Word Perfect (or Wors), worked on spreadsheets in Lotus (or Excel), balanced your checkbook with QuickBooks and played games (a lot of which still used DOS for maximum performance and used VGA resolutions, at most).

So yes, in 1994 VGA *was* the highest resolution your average consumer used on a PC.

I remember my brother's PC from 1992, as it was the 1st PC I ever touched.

486 DX 50, 4 MB RAM, 240MB HDD, Sound Blaster, Cirrus Logic Video Card on a Vesa Loca Bus with 1MB VRAM and MAX 800x600 regular or 1024x768 interlaced monitor.

I used 800x600 65K mostly on Windows 3.1 (3.11 later).

I'm from Spain, not the richest country of the world, and son of bartender....

Enviado desde mi Jolla mediante Tapatalk

[Halcyon]

640x480 at either 16 or 256 colours was pretty much "the default" for Windows machines in the early 90's, even on relatively mediocre hardware.

Once people installed Windows 9x, it was 800x600 or 1024x768 for higher spec'd machines and monitors.

[Zero999]

I don't need to be reminded of what stuff cost then: we've already established that my memory of that era is more accurate than you guys', plus I literally just reviewed a magazine of the era to refresh my memory and make sure I wasn't remembering wrong. (Link is still in my post.)

Computer magazines in that era liked to review just released (or soon to be released) high end systems. Occasionally they would feature low or mid range systems, but generally the focus was on cutting edge.

Nobody is saying resolutions higher than 640x480 weren't available in 1994. They certainly were. What we're saying, and this is the important bit you need to focus on, is that most home users still ran at 640x480, due mainly to cost. Memory was still expensive, so getting a video card and monitor capable of showing 800x600 or 1024x768 @ 16bpp and a refresh rate greater than (or equal to) 60Hz was still very expensive.

It wasn't until Windows 95, the rise in popularity of the Internet and the bottom falling out of the memory industry did screen resolutions start increasing on the average consumer's PC.

You might have a magazine from 1994, but I have actual hard data showing the most used screen resolutions from the early-80's to 2016. VGA resolution was king until 1995/96, when 800x600 started taking over.

Again, just because something was available in 1994, doesn't mean it was economically viable for everyone.

I mean, look at the timeframe. What was there that really required a resolution higher than VGA for the average PC user in 1994? It's not like you could run apps side by side in Windows 3.11. Webpages were just text and a few GIFs. QuickTime and Indigo videos were QVGA resolution due to the processor power required to decode the compression. Consumers weren't editing digital photos back then. Basically, you wrote documents in Word Perfect (or Wors), worked on spreadsheets in Lotus (or Excel), balanced your checkbook with QuickBooks and played games (a lot of which still used DOS for maximum performance and used VGA resolutions, at most).

So yes, in 1994 VGA *was* the highest resolution your average consumer used on a PC.

Colour depth was also a factor.  Many people chose to use a lower colour depth than their graphics card could handle, because their card didn't have enough memory for the desired resolution and speed.

I remember my brother's PC from 1992, as it was the 1st PC I ever touched.

486 DX 50, 4 MB RAM, 240MB HDD, Sound Blaster, Cirrus Logic Video Card on a Vesa Loca Bus with 1MB VRAM and MAX 800x600 regular or 1024x768 interlaced monitor.

I used 800x600 65K mostly on Windows 3.1 (3.11 later).

I'm from Spain, not the richest country of the world, and son of bartender....

Enviado desde mi Jolla mediante Tapatalk

That would have been quite a high end system back then, especially the graphics.

The display was also a limiting factor, especially on laptops. I remember having a laptop in the late 90s which my dad bought for me second had. Although it had a 4MB graphics card, the screen limited the maximum resolution to 800x600 with 65536 colours. I'd often plug it into a CRT to get 1024x768 24-bit colour but it was a bit slow in that mode,