6 ms·

Essentially all DOS graphical extensions used DOS for filesystem implementation, including GEOS, and more notably Windows before the 3.1 (3.1 had user option in

by dfox 5y ago

Essentially all DOS graphical extensions used DOS for filesystem implementation, including GEOS, and more notably Windows before the 3.1 (3.1 had user option in control panel to use Windows-native FAT implementation) and 9x (which could use DOS drivers essentially transparently, but primarily as a fallback). In fact, most 90's DOS software used DOS only for the FS access and maybe print spooling with every other kind of hardware being accessed directly.

simonh 5y ago
True, file system compatibility is a really big deal.
lproven 5y ago
I think you're remembering in an odd backwards fashion. Windows 3.1 had an option for "32-bit Disk Access" when running in 386 Enhanced Mode. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit_disk_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit_disk_access Windows for Workgroups 3.11 (but not ordinary Win 3.11, nor any version of 3.1) also offered 32-bit File Access: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit_file_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit_file_access So WfWg 3.11 -- and only that version -- could do 32-bit disk, filesystem and networking. DOS did have print spooling from v2.0, via the `PRINT` command, but very few DOS apps used that. https://home.csulb.edu/~murdock/print.html https://home.csulb.edu/~murdock/print.html DOS did not not include any form of printer drivers, making DOS printer access fairly useless to apps that could actually control the printer. DOS apps therefore mostly did their own printer control -- and spooling, if any -- so that they could use advanced features such as bold, underline, italics, small fonts or double-width fonts. Soft fonts appeared quite late on DOS; WordPerfect was quite famous for its advanced font and printer control. Scalable fonts only really came with Windows 3.1, which drove printers in graphics mode -- slow, noisy, and with poor print quality, but it enabled WYSIWYG.

by dfox 5y ago

simonh 5y ago

True, file system compatibility is a really big deal.

lproven 5y ago

I think you're remembering in an odd backwards fashion. Windows 3.1 had an option for "32-bit Disk Access" when running in 386 Enhanced Mode. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit_disk_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit_disk_access Windows for Workgroups 3.11 (but not ordinary Win 3.11, nor any version of 3.1) also offered 32-bit File Access: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit_file_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit_file_access So WfWg 3.11 -- and only that version -- could do 32-bit disk, filesystem and networking. DOS did have print spooling from v2.0, via the `PRINT` command, but very few DOS apps used that. https://home.csulb.edu/~murdock/print.html https://home.csulb.edu/~murdock/print.html DOS did not not include any form of printer drivers, making DOS printer access fairly useless to apps that could actually control the printer. DOS apps therefore mostly did their own printer control -- and spooling, if any -- so that they could use advanced features such as bold, underline, italics, small fonts or double-width fonts. Soft fonts appeared quite late on DOS; WordPerfect was quite famous for its advanced font and printer control. Scalable fonts only really came with Windows 3.1, which drove printers in graphics mode -- slow, noisy, and with poor print quality, but it enabled WYSIWYG.