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Was the nature of the crashes due to poor process isolation? Processes going into infinite loops? Memory corruption of the OS? It seems like the limitations we

by cordite 10y ago

Was the nature of the crashes due to poor process isolation? Processes going into infinite loops? Memory corruption of the OS? It seems like the limitations were probably not hardware related, although many hardware features since have made certain tasks and isolation easier. Though unix had a reputation for requiring more capable computers to run.

yuhong 10y ago
I think Win3.x was relatively poor in all of those. This reminds me that the OS/2 2.0 fiasco is one of my favorite topics.
jandrese 10y ago
In my experience, crappy drivers were a frequent reason for crashes. ISA Plug and Play was the worst kind of hack and it bluescreened many machines in its day. But also, computer hardware in general was just crappier back then and the drivers were often just total shit. These days there are lots of standards to help compatibility, and for simple things (like mice) you have the built-in drivers that work fine. But back in the day everyone had to write their own drivers and most of them were poorly tested and thanks to the lack of process isolation could very easily step on other crappy drivers written by other hardware companies. Application bugs could also overwrite parts of the kernel by just accidentally dereferencing a null pointer. Those pre-NT Windows systems were built on a house of cards, and every card was made by a different person who never got to look at any of the other cards.
- GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago
  >In my experience, crappy drivers were a frequent reason for crashes. Indeed. In the XP era: "The main cause of BSOD in Windows XP was device drivers, which were responsible for some 85 percent of hiccups in the OS." http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-the-blue-screen-of-death-no-longer-plagues-windows-users/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-the-blue-screen-of-death-no... And in the Vista era, looks to be a bit under 82% according to evidence presented in a lawsuit: https://www.engadget.com/2008/03/27/nvidia-drivers-responsible-for-nearly-30-of-vista-crashes-in-20/ https://www.engadget.com/2008/03/27/nvidia-drivers-responsib...
Lagged2Death 10y ago
Pretty sure Win 3.x had no concept of processes and no memory isolation of any kind. Contemporary Macs were in a similar position. Both were ludicrously unreliable by 21st century standards. And in both cases the hardware - Intel 80386s and Motorola 68000s - offered support for protected memory. The software just wasn't there yet.
- mikestew 10y ago
  Both were ludicrously unreliable by 21st century standards. They were ludicrously unreliable by 20th century standards, too. It's just that not a lot of people had hands-on access to a mainframe or a mini running Unix, so the end-users got to think that's just how computers work. From my POV, PCs and Macs of that era were toys that coincidentally would occasionally allow useful work to get done. That's not to say I didn't do a lot of development for both, but my $DEITY did I wish I had to money for a real machine like a NeXT.
- favorited 10y ago
  And MacOS didn't get protected memory until Apple acquired NeXT!

by cordite 10y ago

yuhong 10y ago

I think Win3.x was relatively poor in all of those. This reminds me that the OS/2 2.0 fiasco is one of my favorite topics.

jandrese 10y ago

In my experience, crappy drivers were a frequent reason for crashes. ISA Plug and Play was the worst kind of hack and it bluescreened many machines in its day. But also, computer hardware in general was just crappier back then and the drivers were often just total shit. These days there are lots of standards to help compatibility, and for simple things (like mice) you have the built-in drivers that work fine. But back in the day everyone had to write their own drivers and most of them were poorly tested and thanks to the lack of process isolation could very easily step on other crappy drivers written by other hardware companies. Application bugs could also overwrite parts of the kernel by just accidentally dereferencing a null pointer. Those pre-NT Windows systems were built on a house of cards, and every card was made by a different person who never got to look at any of the other cards.

GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago
>In my experience, crappy drivers were a frequent reason for crashes. Indeed. In the XP era: "The main cause of BSOD in Windows XP was device drivers, which were responsible for some 85 percent of hiccups in the OS." http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-the-blue-screen-of-death-no-longer-plagues-windows-users/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-the-blue-screen-of-death-no... And in the Vista era, looks to be a bit under 82% according to evidence presented in a lawsuit: https://www.engadget.com/2008/03/27/nvidia-drivers-responsible-for-nearly-30-of-vista-crashes-in-20/ https://www.engadget.com/2008/03/27/nvidia-drivers-responsib...

Lagged2Death 10y ago

Pretty sure Win 3.x had no concept of processes and no memory isolation of any kind. Contemporary Macs were in a similar position. Both were ludicrously unreliable by 21st century standards. And in both cases the hardware - Intel 80386s and Motorola 68000s - offered support for protected memory. The software just wasn't there yet.

mikestew 10y ago
Both were ludicrously unreliable by 21st century standards. They were ludicrously unreliable by 20th century standards, too. It's just that not a lot of people had hands-on access to a mainframe or a mini running Unix, so the end-users got to think that's just how computers work. From my POV, PCs and Macs of that era were toys that coincidentally would occasionally allow useful work to get done. That's not to say I didn't do a lot of development for both, but my $DEITY did I wish I had to money for a real machine like a NeXT.
favorited 10y ago
And MacOS didn't get protected memory until Apple acquired NeXT!