Subject:
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Re: Perl rules!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.geek
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Date:
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Tue, 20 Jul 1999 18:27:57 GMT
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Viewed:
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1028 times
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[removed lugnet.off-topic.debate from crosspost list]
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Steve Bliss writes:
> On Sat, 17 Jul 1999 05:58:46 GMT, "Todd Lehman" <lehman@javanet.com> wrote:
> > I'm sure James could've written LDraw on any platform if DOS hadn't been
> > around. (What if there had been a Turbo Pascal for Linux at that time?
> > Would LEdit have limits like 1000 parts and 8-character filenames and
> > small screen resolutions?) I certainly don't mean that as a Jab toward
> > James -- only as a Jab toward DOS.
>
> The 1000-line limit in LEdit was a programming limitation. Nothing to do
> with anything evil in the OS, unless you consider lack of virtual memory
> evil (rather than just bad).
I'd say, back in 1983, the lack of virtual memory and the 640KB limit was
no big deal (in the PC industry). By 1989, it was becoming unfortunate.
By 1991, it was getting really bad. And by 1994, it was pure evil, IMHO.
Now, it's just laughable.
But not so much the lack of virtual memory as the lack of addressability
beyond 1 MB (or 640 KB, since devices started at A000:0000 in the PC.)
Sure, there were DOS extenders and protected-mode drivers and libraries, but
those didn't become ubiquitous until years after they were sorely needed.
It just sucks that IBM chose the Intel 80x86 archtecture over, say, the
Motorola 68xxx architecture. The 68xxx architecture was always 32-bit and
would have saved the PC industry years of segmentation grief. And although
the 32-bit 80386 was released in 1985, it took nearly 10 years to stomp out
all of the old 8086 legacy garbage -- and it's not even totally gone today.
Remember back in 1989-1990 when you could get a 2MB or 4MB PC box but only
(practically speaking) use the upper memory for a RAM disk or a few special
high-end applications? That's so terribly sad. :-(
> Was the 8.3 file format originated with MS or DOS? I thought it was
> around before them.
I think MS-DOS got that from CP/M, but I'm not sure. I do remember for sure
that some of my old CP/M programs in the late 70's all ended with .BAS and
had short names, but I'm not sure if CP/M originated 8.3 or whether it
actually was 8.3 and not something else close to that.
But anyway, had Linux been used instead of DOS (and this is not to suggest
that James made a mistake), there certainly wouldn't be the 8.3 limit.
> Small screen resolution was also a programming issue. LDraw supported
> larger resolutions, in the SVGA standard, up to 1280x1024. Unfortunately,
> it only works in 16 color modes, and most video cards don't offer SVGA
> high-resolution/low-color modes.
IIRC, the old SVGA architecture used 16KB buffer windows below the 1MB
boundary for 16-bit apps to write to them, or you could make simple INT 10
BIOS calls (ayyyahhh!)... Not much need for device-abstraction libraries
back then since the video hardware was still rather homogeneous, but the
big limitation was not being able to access 32-bit addresses directly
without doing really gross things like flipping in and out of 32-bit
protected mode. :-(
In that regard, thank god for MS-Windows, since it helped do away with most
of the mess created by itself and Intel earlier.
--Todd
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Perl rules!
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| (...) And why did IBM stick all the ROM and system stuff in high memory (>640K), rather than low memory? If they had done that, it would have been (more) possible to extend the address space without totally losing backwards compatibility. Or if (...) (25 years ago, 20-Jul-99, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
| | | Re: Perl rules!
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| (...) You realise what the cost differential you're talking about is, don't you? If IBM had used 68k rather than x86, there's a much better chance today the lucky few would have macs, rather than everybody and his dog having a PC. (...) Yeah. I (...) (25 years ago, 22-Jul-99, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Perl rules!
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| (...) The 1000-line limit in LEdit was a programming limitation. Nothing to do with anything evil in the OS, unless you consider lack of virtual memory evil (rather than just bad). Was the 8.3 file format originated with MS or DOS? I thought it was (...) (25 years ago, 20-Jul-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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