4 ms·

We really did have everything, didn't we? I mean, when you think about it.

pavlov 3y ago
With 32-bit DOS extenders, VESA VGA BIOS extensions and Gravis Ultrasound, we really did have everything — except an operating system. Who needs one anyway.
- com2kid 3y ago
  Turns out they just get in the way, and in-between showing ads, sell your usage data to advertising companies. We were better off without them.
  - anyfoo 3y ago
    Don't be trite in a technical conversation. While I agree that those things are bad, it adds nothing here, and besides only a minority of Operating Systems does what you say.
- anyfoo 3y ago
  Yeah. Until we wanted multitasking. Separate address spaces, shared resources, protection, eventually security. That's when the "operating system" came in. DOS was allowed to live as a virtualized task, but it wasn't the same. I did get tambourine_man's reference, though. Nice!
  - linguae 3y ago
    Though, there’s a way we can enjoy a minimal operating system yet also have security, protection, and resource management: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exokernel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exokernel
- mysterydip 3y ago
  All it was missing was an (optional) network stack, IMHO
  - toast0 3y ago
    NDIS was available for DOS, and so was ODI (used for IPX and Netware)
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Looking at the maker community doing bare metal on Arduino and ESP32, a bunch of libraries is good enough for many tasks.
Dwedit 3y ago
We even have HxDOS, which runs Win32 applications, including console applications. For example, even a modern version of 7-zip (console version) runs perfectly on ancient DOS computers.
- mysterydip 3y ago
  Now apparently just called HX, for those (like me) looking for it: https://pmwiki.xaver.me/drdoswiki/index.php?n=Main.HX-DOS https://pmwiki.xaver.me/drdoswiki/index.php?n=Main.HX-DOS
- ale42 3y ago
  Now I just want HX running directly on UEFI! ;-)
  - blueflow 3y ago
    If you have UEFI you can develop against the UEFI interface... its a more sophisticated OS than DOS on its own.
    - ale42 3y ago
      I know, but it can't run Win32 console executables nor DOS programs directly... although it uses a variant of the same EXE format as Win32 ;)
- garganzol 3y ago
  This is something I was able to achieve independently back in 2001 by writing a small DOS program that switched CPU into 32-bit protected mode, loaded a PE (portable executable) exe file into the memory together with DLL modules it depended upon. The next step was to write KERNEL32.dll etc modules that were used by executable files of interest. It turned out to be a relatively easy task - only a handful of Win32 modules and their API functions were actually used by the real programs I was trying to run under the DOS. And those API implementations were mostly stubs that translated, say, I/O calls from a program into corresponding DOS calls. Having that trick upon my sleeve, I vividly remember of being able to run 32-bit Borland C++ compiler (bcc32.exe) and linker for Windows under the raw DOS environment. Don't ask why, I did it because I could.

With 32-bit DOS extenders, VESA VGA BIOS extensions and Gravis Ultrasound, we really did have everything — except an operating system. Who needs one anyway.

com2kid 3y ago
Turns out they just get in the way, and in-between showing ads, sell your usage data to advertising companies. We were better off without them.
- anyfoo 3y ago
  Don't be trite in a technical conversation. While I agree that those things are bad, it adds nothing here, and besides only a minority of Operating Systems does what you say.
anyfoo 3y ago
Yeah. Until we wanted multitasking. Separate address spaces, shared resources, protection, eventually security. That's when the "operating system" came in. DOS was allowed to live as a virtualized task, but it wasn't the same. I did get tambourine_man's reference, though. Nice!
- linguae 3y ago
  Though, there’s a way we can enjoy a minimal operating system yet also have security, protection, and resource management: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exokernel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exokernel
mysterydip 3y ago
All it was missing was an (optional) network stack, IMHO
- toast0 3y ago
  NDIS was available for DOS, and so was ODI (used for IPX and Netware)
pjmlp 3y ago
Looking at the maker community doing bare metal on Arduino and ESP32, a bunch of libraries is good enough for many tasks.

Dwedit 3y ago

We even have HxDOS, which runs Win32 applications, including console applications. For example, even a modern version of 7-zip (console version) runs perfectly on ancient DOS computers.

mysterydip 3y ago
Now apparently just called HX, for those (like me) looking for it: https://pmwiki.xaver.me/drdoswiki/index.php?n=Main.HX-DOS https://pmwiki.xaver.me/drdoswiki/index.php?n=Main.HX-DOS
ale42 3y ago
Now I just want HX running directly on UEFI! ;-)
- blueflow 3y ago
  If you have UEFI you can develop against the UEFI interface... its a more sophisticated OS than DOS on its own.
  - ale42 3y ago
    I know, but it can't run Win32 console executables nor DOS programs directly... although it uses a variant of the same EXE format as Win32 ;)
garganzol 3y ago
This is something I was able to achieve independently back in 2001 by writing a small DOS program that switched CPU into 32-bit protected mode, loaded a PE (portable executable) exe file into the memory together with DLL modules it depended upon. The next step was to write KERNEL32.dll etc modules that were used by executable files of interest. It turned out to be a relatively easy task - only a handful of Win32 modules and their API functions were actually used by the real programs I was trying to run under the DOS. And those API implementations were mostly stubs that translated, say, I/O calls from a program into corresponding DOS calls. Having that trick upon my sleeve, I vividly remember of being able to run 32-bit Borland C++ compiler (bcc32.exe) and linker for Windows under the raw DOS environment. Don't ask why, I did it because I could.