I long for a decent OS.

[Cymric]

KThunder wrote:
no we havent evolved but we designed the cpus and apps and code them. assembly coders arent stuck in the middle ages (80s) they now do code for this stuff. compillers are good but if they are perfect why do they all provide inline capabilities, you yourself admitted that all major oss are written in c and assembly.

I specifically addressed this: to have a clean way in which you can access system resources C has no abstraction for. MMU tables, setting up FPU control bits, sending data over various data buses, and so forth.

weather or not this stuff is a waste of time is up to the people wasting (or not) their time, many assem coders do it cause it is fun.

If it is for fun, then we are in agreement. If it is meant for a serious project with people intending to gain a lot of second-party support and the like, or when dealing with complex ideas (such as those underlying an operating system), then we are not in agreement.

we could argue this for pages and not get anywere i think assembly is usefull for many things and you dont. i actually havent done much coding in a few months and i am a offset lithographic pressman not a coder so im not argueing my livelyhood here.

You seem to have a knack for deliberately misunderstanding me, or misrepresenting what I write. Truly, I may not be able to write fluent Shakespearian english considering it's not my native language, but I have a hard time drawing the above conclusion ' don't think assembly is usefull [sic] for many things' from my contributions to this thread. Either way, I've made my points several times now, I'm not going to elaborate them any further. Enjoy your bashing the bare metal.

[KThunder]

i was trying to close the (useless) discussion, but was a bit clunky at it.
i didnt deliberately misunderstand you. you feel that there are a few things assem is useful for correct? there are many things you dont think it is useful for.
the fact that there are operating systems and apps written entirely in assem mean that i am at least partially right. and the fact that most oss and apps are written in c and inline mean that you are at least partially right.

[Dr_Righteous]

stefcep wrote:
I wonder how Win98se would run on a 3 ghz machine with 1 gig ram?

Actually, they won't run at all, in my experience. Even a nice clean install with all the proper drivers, Win98se became extremely unstable when I upgraded this machine with a 2GHz Athlon XP. Might just be this board, or bad drivers. But I've had no trouble under Win2k, or Linux or any other OS.

Alas, I fear the same issues when it's time to upgrade again.

[amigadave]

KThunder wrote:
ok back on topic a sec,

do they still sell webtv boxes? those boot instantly and have some simple apps and stuff.

No, I don't think so, but if you want one, Mom will gladly sell you hers cheap, as she is very happy with her G4 iBook now that she has gotten used to making video phone calls for free over Skype with her iSight camera.  (Mom is 78 )

[koaftder]

koaftder wrote:

KThunder wrote:
ok back on topic a sec,

do they still sell webtv boxes? those boot instantly and have some simple apps and stuff.

It still exists. I saw one in BestBuy a few months ago.

http://www.msntv.com/pc/

Microsoft bought out WebTV. They still make these things. If one was to buy one of these things, I would highly recommend getting a new one, as the older models get support dropped at an alarming rate.

[coldfish]

Boot-times are a mixed experience;
 
-I've had an A1200 that took 1min+ to boot WB,
-an XP machine that takes maybe 30-45 seconds,
-another XP box that takes 2min+ to boot,  
-an old win98 machine boot in about 30secs.  
-Kubuntu on my laptop seems to take forever (1-2min),
-whereas Win2000 on the same machine boots in about half the time and resumes from hybernation in about 20-30 seconds.
-My crusty old C64 booted instantly, but took 3min+ to load anything useful.

Im surprised PC's boot as fast as they do, considering the hardware comes form 1000's of different vendors and modern OS's have so many features built in.  Its absolutely no surprise that some people experience long boot-times.

In short, if you just want to take quick notes now and then, a full desktop OS isnt the right tool for the job.  What you need is a handheld of some variety.

Hopefully, with hybrid magnetic/flash storage tech on the horizon, PC boot-times will improve.

[Minuous]

>>I wonder how Win98se would run on a 3 ghz machine with 1 gig ram?

>Actually, they won't run at all, in my experience. Even a nice clean install with all the proper drivers, Win98se became extremely unstable when I upgraded this machine with a 2GHz Athlon XP. Might just be this board, or bad drivers. But I've had no trouble under Win2k, or Linux or any other OS.

Well, I'm using a 2.4GHz P4 with Win98SE and it works fine here. Still end up waiting for things to load, etc. sometimes but it would be worse if I downgraded to something like XP.

Plus, XP's compatibility is dismal, when I was using it, half the programs on my HD wouldn't run correctly, and no new features that I could see. And it's ugly as hell. I don't know why anyone would bother with it.

[stefcep]

Plus, XP's compatibility is dismal, when I was using it, half the programs on my HD wouldn't run correctly, and no new features that I could see. And it's ugly as hell. I don't know why anyone would bother with it.[/quote]

I agree, the blue and orange color scheme (sound familiar ala workbench 1.2) is ugly and slows things down so when I have used XP I just turn all of the eye candy off and it looks like Win 2000

Minuous wrote:
>

[CannonFodder]

@Orig poster

DeLi Linux stands for "Desktop Light" Linux. It is a Linux Distribution for old computers, from 486 to Pentium MMX 166 or so. It's focused on desktop usage. It includes email clients, graphical web browser, an office package with word processor and spreadsheet, and so on. A full install, including XOrg and development tools, needs not more than 350 MB of harddisk space.

The trick is, that DeLi Linux uses only "lightweight" alternative software. If you are looking for the newest KDE, GNOME or Mozilla, DeLi Linux will not make you happy. The test computer is a 486 laptop with 16 MB RAM, and all apps which comes with DeLi Linux are running smoothly.

"Why the heck make a Linux for such old crap ?" you may ask. There are still many computers around with the configuration mentioned above, it would be a shame to waste them. Many people simply cannot buy a 4 Ghz machine for 1000 $ or more, but they can buy a Pentium I 133 for 50 $ from ebay. Many people are still happy with the computer they bought five years ago. Especially in the so-called third world, new hardware is not affordable. Well, there's still Windows95 or Windows 3.1, which will  run on these machines, too. But these versions are not supported by MS anymore, they are no longer in production, and finally, you will not get any software for this old Windows version.

http://delili.lens.hl-users.com/

[CannonFodder]

And there is always my personal favourite, if only for the lighting fast performance using the copy to ram option.

Austrumi Linux

[Minuous]

>finally, you will not get any software for this old Windows version.

Ha, you won't?

Obviously you don't know where to look. There's plenty for everyone to download.

[downward_s]

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for the links to alternative OS projects. SkyOS looks particularly interesting.

Having great fun messing about with them, but more importantly, they are actually useful.

David

[downward_s]

Hi,

So get a Tandy model 100 or, even better, a Tandy WP2. Days to weeks on a set of AA's with use, months to years(!) off/standby. Even interfaces with Amigas using Term etc.

I have worked with such things in the past, but to be honest I find the screens are usually a limiting factor. Perhaps I have just become spoiled with good text editors, but I find it difficult to judge the flow of text and the general feel of things with a display that is only a few columns tall.

I'm finding that an old worthless laptop with DOS, a small hard disk, and a text editor installed is a really good tool for the job. It doesn't touch the friendliness or power of a good editor on the Amiga, but the fact that it is portable makes up for that somewhat.

David