🚀 go-pugleaf

hjh@aeg.dsto.oz.au (H.J.Harvey-AEG) writes:

) ttak@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Timothy Takahashi) writes:

) >I've heard of Dr-DOS, but never actually seen anybody run it. What are the
) >"few differences?" Is it better/faster/smaller than MS-DOS?

First, a disclaimer. I work for Digital Research (Japan), Inc., whose
parent company sells DR-DOS. My job doesn't involve DOS, except as a
tool or as something to connect a network to. These views are 
unofficial, and not necessarily those of DRI, and all the usual...

The recently-release DR-DOS 5.0 is quite different from the old version
3.41 as far as I can tell. I didn't use 3.41 much, since it was not
compatible with some obscure stuff in my MKS tools, but the problems
have been solved with 5.0. Now I'm hooked, and it is my system of
choice. The comments that follow relate to 5.0.

I am omitting features I haven't used or problems I don't know about
directly.

) Briefly, in comparison to MS-DOS:

) It runs about 12% slower than MS-DOS V3.3

5.0 is has faster file i/o. I can't speak for the rest.
It comes with an (optional) disk cache.

) It will NOT run all networking packages.  It is only "guaranteed" (if that is
) the right word) to run with Novell.  I was told that this is because Novell
) represents 80% of the total PC networking environment, so Digital Research
) concentrated on that package first.  I believe that this problem has been
) fixed in V5.0

Yes, at the time of release, it ran all of the networks except for Lantastic,
and a fix for Lantastic was (we were told) imminent. It also runs Windows 3.0.

) DR-DOS takes longer to load at boot time

It seems to load faster than MS-DOS 3.3.

) It takes less room (about 20K) than MS-DOS V3.31 and although it signs itself
) on as DR-DOS V3.41 at boot time, it identifies as DOS V3.31 with INT 21H/30h
) It handles partitions up to 512Mb

Enhanced with a vengeance. We have systems running in 20K of the 640K
available, with the rest loaded into extended memory. Yes, CHKDSK shows
620K available. It will also look for available memory between 640K and
1MB+64K, and attempt to load the kernel there. Even the network drivers
will load into high memory.

) Installation is a breeze - just follow the questions in the installation
) program.

Installation is improved in 5.0.

) V5.0 can put its OS up in extended/expanded RAM, giving a TPA of about 620K.

As above. This means almost all of the OS, including TSRs, buffers, drivers,
and a lot of the kernel.

) It provides a shell a la MS-DOS V4 and gives root directory password protection
) as well.  It also includes a file download program for transfers. 

The (optional) graphical shell looks kind of like GEM or Macintosh or
whatever. It is IBM CUA compatible. The transfer program is a bit like
a LapLink subset, but serial only.

Most commands have "help" switches, so if you don't remember what option
is used to format, say, a 360K disk on a 1.2 meg drive, it will tell you.

It remembers a "command history" that extends the usual Fn3 key. You can
step through previous commands (up to a user-specified limit, depending on
how much buffer you want to use for that purpose) and edit them.

It can also execute out of ROM. (This is not to be confused with the ability
to be put into ROM and copied to RAM on powerup.)

It has a power monitor feature that monitors activity and shuts down
system components when not in use. We put this into laptops to save
battery usage. It is OEM configurable, so I'm not sure that it comes
with the standard retail release.

It seems to be very portable. I have installed it out of the box on a
variety of strange Japanese machines and it seems to work OK.