9 Sep
2012
9 Sep
'12
9:53 a.m.
On Sun, 9 Sep 2012, Liam Proven wrote:
My recollection was $110M and $30M, but that could be completely wrong.
(unrefreshed unreliable dynamic RAM)
Both companies were a little too free with sharing the trade secrets
BEFORE the deal was finalized.
It would have helped if I were to have listed all of the intermediate
steps originally.
<pedantic>
<! More than any sane person would care about>
As well it should! There's GOTTA BE A BETTER WAY!
Nothing written, . . .
In 1.10, if one were to have run the CHKDKSK from 1.00 it would obligingly
"FIX" the disk into an almost irreparable mess, through lack of
understanding that there existed a DS disk format that it was unaware of.
In 2.00? they started having EVERY DOS program check which version was
running and refuse to run if it wasn't the "right" one. (Even if there
were no differences that would matter) THAT resulted in the addition of
SETVER later on (6.00?)
When I encountered that in 2.00 V 2.10, I followed up on it.
2.00 returned 0002
2.10 returned 0A02
2.11 returned 0B02
3.00 0003
3.10 0A03
3.20 1403
3.30 1E03
3.31 1F03
I had a copy of 4.01 that returned 0004! It was widely considered
to be "buggy" (although the biggest "bug" was that Nortun fUtilities
If MICROS~1 were to have admitted that SMARTDRV should NOT have such an
agressive default configuration (and fixed it with an AUTOEXEC line?),
thet would not have had to do the FREE 6.20 "step-up", and then the
re-release without disk compression infringement might have been 6.20, . . .
Did their stubbornness and the resulting public assumption that disk
compression was unreliable and flawed really save them much face?
</pedantic>
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
I taught people to do Ctrl-Alt-Del and wait for the
BIOS screen,
*then* power off.
Still risky with SMARTDRV's write-cacheing!
Most people had been taught that on exiting their "productivity software"
to wait until they got the4 DOS prompt b3efore shutting off. THAT was
the disaster. Many didn't even realize that they should watch the lights
on the drives!
But to be fair, lots of OSs had problems if you turned
off without
shutting down. It's just that MS-DOS was so rudimentary that it didn't
/have/ a shutdown procedure and so users weren't accustomed to this.
Yes. MS-DOS had NO shutdown procedure at all. Even when hard disk
arrived (DOS 2.00), "PARK" programs were third party! (could be done in a
few dozen bytes) IBM had a park program on their DIAGNOSTICS DISK, but
MICROS~1 never pro0vided one. Q: Does shutdown on Windoze9x park the
heads? properly?
but awarded
MICROS~1 about $30
million in their counter-suit.
Didn't know that. NO. in 6.22
OK, agreed. My memory from nearly 20y ago is clearly more fallible
than I realised. NB: There was
never a Six point ONE. Nor a six point TWO. It was Six
point TEN, and Six point TWENTY.
My meagre inner mathematician shudders at such
usage. MOV AH, 30h
INT 21h
returned 6 in AL and 0Ah or 1.4h in AH
Microsoft version numbers are an integer "MAJOR" number, a "full
stop",
followed by a TWO digit decimal number for "MINOR" number
There WAS a DOS "Four point one" (4.01), but never a 4.1 (4.10)
Got a
reference? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I've /never/ heard this usage.
from earilier days didn't grasp the changes made
for >32M drives done
in MS-DOS 3.31 (1F03) and PC-DOS 4.00 (0004)) InfoWorld:
"New PC-DOS 4
is buggy! Won't run Norton!" (The great motorcycle company should have
sued Peter Norton for tradename dilution and defamation (as Beretta sued
Chevrolet?)
6.00 0006
6.10 0A06
6.20 1406
6.21 1506
6.22 1606
It held true, up until Win95 (0007)
SETVER was for the sole purpose of over-riding trhe version number
checking, so that when a program did INT21h,Fn30h, DOS would lie about its
age, with a small database stored IN SETVER to keep track of which lie to
tell which program!
I made my beginning assembly language students write their own VER
program. THEIR program had to display a sentence.
Go into DEBUG, (and do NOT type in the comments!)
A ; enter assembling mode
MOV AH, 30 ; set AH to 30h to select function
INT 21 ; DOS functions
INT 3 ; end program (breakpoint) and display registers
; hit enter to get out of assembling mode
G ; RUN
(reset IP/PC to 0100
R PC
100
if you want to run it again, INT 3 leaves the registers unchanged.)
Microsoft
would never admit that SMARTDRV had problems, but it was
actually the ONLY (or at least PRIMARY) factor!
Certainly willing to believe that!