4 ms·

Interesting they were actual graphical dialogs with bouse support in 16-bit windows, but you'd get a text-mode blue screen on Win95. Happened a lot to me due to

by janci 3y ago

Interesting they were actual graphical dialogs with bouse support in 16-bit windows, but you'd get a text-mode blue screen on Win95. Happened a lot to me due to faulty CD-ROM drive. D: can not be read. Abort/retry/fail. What was even the difference between Abort and Fail?

ronsor 3y ago
Abort terminates the application. Fail returns an error code.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deathanatos 3y ago
> What was even the difference between Abort and Fail? A whole generation of computer users has wondered this. According to Wikipedia[1], "abort" aborted the program (terminated it), and "fail" returned an error code to the program. (Which … probably has a high likelihood of killing it all the same, since a given random I/O is probably pretty non-optional.) Wikipedia also notes, > the message has been cited as an example of poor usability in computer user interfaces. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abort,_Retry,_Fail%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abort,_Retry,_Fail%3F
- epcoa 3y ago
  In DOS the infamous Abort, Retry, (Ignore), Fail was the default handling of "critical errors". Abort would terminate immediately, and fail would return control to the program with an error code. You could override this however: https://web.archive.org/web/20100206220048/http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AoA/DOS/ch19/CH19-2.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100206220048/http://webster.cs...
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  Ahhh. I remember as a kid playing some game and sometimes this would come up. We learned that Fail would allow the game to keep running but the background for the scene simply didn’t appear (I guess that I/O was optional).
giancarlostoro 3y ago
Not sure the differences, but my understanding of Windows was that it wasn't until Windows XP that they added a "Window Manager" think of like Gnome or KDE on Linux. Before then, the UI was all a wrap on top of a command line application, or so that's how I was told it was. I assume the blue screen is as minimal as it is since it usually is some hardware halt, and its much easier to render without worry about any GPU restrictions and the sort. Although the modern ones are impressive with their QR codes.
- Joker_vD 3y ago
  Not sure what you're talking about: the window manager "like Gnome or KDE" was added in Windows 1.0. And while it was kind of a wrap on top of a command line application back then, just as it still is on Linux (I believe), Windows 95 got a completely standalone desktop/graphic subsystem which didn't ran on top of anything except HAL; console/DOS subsystem was its foster sibling, so to speak.
- bitwize 3y ago
  Welllll... OK, so from 1985 with Windows 1.0 until 2001 with the release of Windows XP, consumer versions of Windows were built on top of MS-DOS. For the latest releases -- Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me -- DOS was bundled together with Windows to make a complete operating system product. But before then, up through Windows 3.11, you had to say 'win' at the DOS prompt to get into Windows. But the thing you have to remember is that DOS was barely an operating system. It had a rudimentary file system, support for a single process, and no memory protection to speak of at all. You could bypass the OS altogether to directly access the hardware; most DOS applications, especially games, did just that for everything except file access. So Windows actually provided a lot of operating system functionality that DOS didn't and called down into DOS routines for file access. (In fact, you could even chainload an operating system like Linux from DOS. A program called LOADLIN.EXE let you load and run a Linux kernel from the DOS command line; combined with special file system support called 'umsdos' that overlaid Linux file semantics on top of the DOS FAT file system, this meant that you could run full Linux, from DOS, in your existing DOS partition!) But even then -- starting in Windows 3.1 (or 3.11, I forget which) a new feature emerged called "32-bit disk access". Windows provided its own routines to handle the DOS file system while it was running, eliminating the need to call down to DOS at all. This was optional on Windows 3.x but the default on Windows 9x (including Me). So DOS was relegated to the role of a bootloader for Windows and a compatibility layer you could escape to for the old DOS programs people still wanted to run (like Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, and such). So Windows started off as a layer on top of DOS, which was command-line driven, but once loaded it became most or all of a graphical, multitasking operating system in its own right. And it had its own, built in window manager; matter of fact it had more of one than Mac OS, in which user application code had to handle things like moving, resizing, and closing windows (for which utility functions were provided). Windows NT, which consumer versions of Windows from Windows XP onward were built on top of, has existed since 1993 and that's its own thing, having a 32-bit fully preemptive multitasking kernel with memory protection, user permissions, and the whole bit. It was used primarily in server applications before Windows XP.
bitwize 3y ago
Abort means terminate the program. Fail means return from the system call with a failure code. I used to wonder this myself.

by janci 3y ago

ronsor 3y ago

Abort terminates the application. Fail returns an error code.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

deathanatos 3y ago

> What was even the difference between Abort and Fail? A whole generation of computer users has wondered this. According to Wikipedia[1], "abort" aborted the program (terminated it), and "fail" returned an error code to the program. (Which … probably has a high likelihood of killing it all the same, since a given random I/O is probably pretty non-optional.) Wikipedia also notes, > the message has been cited as an example of poor usability in computer user interfaces. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abort,_Retry,_Fail%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abort,_Retry,_Fail%3F

epcoa 3y ago
In DOS the infamous Abort, Retry, (Ignore), Fail was the default handling of "critical errors". Abort would terminate immediately, and fail would return control to the program with an error code. You could override this however: https://web.archive.org/web/20100206220048/http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AoA/DOS/ch19/CH19-2.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100206220048/http://webster.cs...
Waterluvian 3y ago
Ahhh. I remember as a kid playing some game and sometimes this would come up. We learned that Fail would allow the game to keep running but the background for the scene simply didn’t appear (I guess that I/O was optional).

giancarlostoro 3y ago

Not sure the differences, but my understanding of Windows was that it wasn't until Windows XP that they added a "Window Manager" think of like Gnome or KDE on Linux. Before then, the UI was all a wrap on top of a command line application, or so that's how I was told it was. I assume the blue screen is as minimal as it is since it usually is some hardware halt, and its much easier to render without worry about any GPU restrictions and the sort. Although the modern ones are impressive with their QR codes.

Joker_vD 3y ago
Not sure what you're talking about: the window manager "like Gnome or KDE" was added in Windows 1.0. And while it was kind of a wrap on top of a command line application back then, just as it still is on Linux (I believe), Windows 95 got a completely standalone desktop/graphic subsystem which didn't ran on top of anything except HAL; console/DOS subsystem was its foster sibling, so to speak.
bitwize 3y ago
Welllll... OK, so from 1985 with Windows 1.0 until 2001 with the release of Windows XP, consumer versions of Windows were built on top of MS-DOS. For the latest releases -- Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me -- DOS was bundled together with Windows to make a complete operating system product. But before then, up through Windows 3.11, you had to say 'win' at the DOS prompt to get into Windows. But the thing you have to remember is that DOS was barely an operating system. It had a rudimentary file system, support for a single process, and no memory protection to speak of at all. You could bypass the OS altogether to directly access the hardware; most DOS applications, especially games, did just that for everything except file access. So Windows actually provided a lot of operating system functionality that DOS didn't and called down into DOS routines for file access. (In fact, you could even chainload an operating system like Linux from DOS. A program called LOADLIN.EXE let you load and run a Linux kernel from the DOS command line; combined with special file system support called 'umsdos' that overlaid Linux file semantics on top of the DOS FAT file system, this meant that you could run full Linux, from DOS, in your existing DOS partition!) But even then -- starting in Windows 3.1 (or 3.11, I forget which) a new feature emerged called "32-bit disk access". Windows provided its own routines to handle the DOS file system while it was running, eliminating the need to call down to DOS at all. This was optional on Windows 3.x but the default on Windows 9x (including Me). So DOS was relegated to the role of a bootloader for Windows and a compatibility layer you could escape to for the old DOS programs people still wanted to run (like Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, and such). So Windows started off as a layer on top of DOS, which was command-line driven, but once loaded it became most or all of a graphical, multitasking operating system in its own right. And it had its own, built in window manager; matter of fact it had more of one than Mac OS, in which user application code had to handle things like moving, resizing, and closing windows (for which utility functions were provided). Windows NT, which consumer versions of Windows from Windows XP onward were built on top of, has existed since 1993 and that's its own thing, having a 32-bit fully preemptive multitasking kernel with memory protection, user permissions, and the whole bit. It was used primarily in server applications before Windows XP.

bitwize 3y ago

Abort means terminate the program. Fail means return from the system call with a failure code. I used to wonder this myself.