10 May
2024
10 May
'24
9:28 p.m.
>> very slow and buggy. I heard a story that to
speed up disc access, MS put
>> FAT-manipulation code in the actual compiler and that occasionally
>> destroyed the FAT.
>
> Sorry Stuff, ain't so.
> If you had FAT corruption issues, perhaps you had SMARTDRV enabled with
> write cacheing (which did occasionally mess up the FAT).
On Fri, 10 May 2024, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote:
I developed quite a bit and for many years with
Microsoft C v6.0 under DOS
and it was not bad. The compiler was decently fast and once 486s and then
Pentiums became available compile time wasn't really an issue. It was
actually the least shitty Microsoft product I've ever used, next to MS-DOS
6.22. It was actually pretty good.
A good example of why I generally hate MS software. But the solution was
easy: just turn off write-caching.
I also liked their C V6.
and MASM 5.00 and beyond were the first MASM to have documentation that
was not CRIMINALLY bad.
SMARTDRV caused a lot of disk corruption. Which was erroneously blamed on
the compression. When Infoworld did a test routine that did a bunch of
miscellaneous stuff and rebooted in a loop (thereby corrupting disk
because SMARTDRV write cache had not been written out!) and blamed the
compression, billg tried to explain that their test routine was faulty,
not the compression, but wasn't about to admit that SMARTDRV was at fault.
Infoworld reported that conversation as an attempt to intimidate!
MS-DOS 6.2x "fixed the problems with compression"!
The way that it did so was to change SMARTDRV to NOT default to
write-cacheing on,
IFF the user turned SMARTDRV write-cacheing back on, then SMARTDRV was changed
to NOT re-arrange the sequence of writes (had been for efficiency, but
risky), and
NOT display the DOS prompt until the write cache(s) were written. (thus
not implicitly telling the user that it was now OK to turn off the
computer (which had a shutdown sequence of turn off the power))
Those changes to SMARTDRV "fixed compression".
MS-DOS 6.2x also did a LOT of other fixes; it may have been the only
Microsoft product where the primary goal of the updaate was to improve
reliability!
MS-DOS 6.20 SMARTDRV and other fixes
MS-DOS 6.21 6.20 without compression; Microsoft had lost lawsuit with STAC
($100K judgment from Microsoft to STAC, and $30K judgement from STAC to
Microsoft. billg said, "I'm having a bad day.")
MS-DOS 6.22 6.20 with a new non-infringing compression
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com