MSDOS/DRDOS?
J.F.McLaughlin Pittsburgh,PA
Daniel Mittleman
>Sub: msdos/drdos?
I don't know when Novell DOS 7.0 (was: DR-DOS) will actually ship. It
is supposed to have true multi-tasking and if it does will be a major
step forward for DOS. With that spec it may also have bugs in it at
first - who knows.
I bought DR-DOS 6.0 and stopped using it fairly quickly. My sense was
that it was a wee bit slower than MS-DOS 3.3 and 5.0 (but I never ran
any tests to prove it.) It also lacked a SETVER command which I
needed. (Someone on the net subsequently pointed out that there is
another way to invoke SETVER functionality in it; but I had long since
switched back before learning this - it wasn't under SETVER in the
manual and as far as I am concerned that is where the info should have
been.
On the other hand, DR-DOS 6.0 has a much better help system than MS-DOS
5.0, it has (in my opinion) a better shell that MS-DOS 5.0, and it has
a nifty setup utility. It also handles task switching better.
Both DR-DOS 6.0 and MS-DOS 5.0 are fairly solid OS's and will serve you
adquately in running your DOS apps.
Alexandre Khalil
I have through 3 motherboard, 2 memory and 2 hard disk upgrades without
a glitch.
I certainly do not use much less use all the features, but here are those
that I use and came to expect:
- disk compression
- defragmenter
- an excellent help
- a flawless compatibility, with the exception of a moment of panic after
Windows 3.1 came out, but the Digital Research patch got to my local BBS
in time.
- a "normal, usable" full-screen editor.
On the other hand, there is multi-tasker (rather task swapper) that I have
never used, but a friend of mine loves it.
I have also heard some good things about the debugger, but never tried it
myself.
I will most certainly upgrade to 7.0 when it will be out.
alex khalil
U. of Houston-Downtown
al...@dt.uh.edu
PS: as a side remark, Apple is writing a version of its System 7 for use
on top of DRDOS 7.0, that should be interesting.
Maarten Meijer
>Sub: msdos/drdos?
Concerning your question about DR-DOS vs. MS-DOS, perhaps my findings
could be of some value.
About 8 months ago, I evaluated DR-DOS 6.0 for an article in a Dutch
computer magazine called PCplus. I tested DR-DOS on several machines,
from low-end (XT) to high-end (486). At that time MS-DOS 6.0 was not yet
there, so compared to MS-DOS 5.0 DR-DOS offered a lot of additional
utilities, now more-or-less available with MS-DOS 6.0 too.
One of my conclusions: DR-DOS is slow, both in screen access (in
its utilities like the editor (Wordstar-like!) and help) as well
as in accessing files (which affects taskswitching too). Slow screen
access because the DR-programmers presumably access the screen in a
way (DOS-function calls) that permits redirecting but is generally
considered old-fashioned.
I measured file access (read/write,sequential/random) with and w/o
caching. It revealed that without any caching, DR-DOS is as twice as
slow as MS-DOS 5.0. As was the case with DR-DOS 5.0 that I tested a
year before. But with its disk caching program SuperPCKwik, DR-DOS
reaches the performance of MS-DOS 5.0-without-caching.
However, SuperPCKwik itself was far superior compared to Smartdrive!
When I combined MS-DOS with DR-DOS' SuperPCKwik, I got the utmost
performance!
Despite the fact Digital Research provided an update disk to its original
release of DR-DOS 6.0, I found numerous annoying little bugs in
DR-DOS. To me, this means they didn't test the product well enough, so
(theoretically) you don't know what giant mistakes are waiting to come
up!
I didn't experience any compatibility problems with the usual application
packages. Everything ran fine. However, on the programmer's level (API)
there are numerous differences (see Ralph Brown's interrupt list), so
programs that exploit some esoteric details of MS-DOS may experience
problems with DR-DOS.
After testing DR-DOS I quickly switched back to MS-DOS. But I kept using
SuperStor (DR-DOS' storage compression program) for a while. Then later,
I discovered a serious error with SuperStor, of which I can't tell if it
will occur when you use it with DR-DOS. A few times a week I lost the
first cluster of some arbitrary file I was frequently editing. The file
was there, but the first 16 sectors (= 1 cluster) were filled
with ASCII-0.
My conclusion about DR-DOS 6.0: it isn't as stable as MS-DOS 5.0, it is
slow especially if you have an older machine (286 or below), it has
more-advanced additional utilities then MS-DOS 5.0 had (and even MS-DOS
6.0 has), but some are rather buggy, and may be SuperStor has a
serious error.
On the other hand, (to me) MS-DOS has proven to be a stable platform
since version 5.0. To me, this goes for version 6.0 as well, despite
all flames and disaster reports in this newsgroup. Reported troubles
with DBLSPACE seem related to the use of a write-cache, which is
dangerous anyway, but especially with on-the-fly compression.
By the way, I'm not a spokesman of Microsoft, nor have I any reason
to promote Microsoft products.
--
Maarten Meijer (mme...@cc.ruu.nl)
ACCU -- Academic Computing Centre Utrecht University --
Budapestlaan 8, P.O.Box 80011, 3508 TA Utrecht, Netherlands.
phone (31)30531660 / fax (31)30531633
Michael Hermann
you should probably buy DRDOS 6.0 as you have a 286. Version 7.0 will
be a 32-bit OS (IMO) that therefore will require at least a 386.
7.0 will have peer-to-peer networking and preemptive multitasking,
which definitely is a great improvement (more of an improvement than
MSDOS 3.3 to 6.0 IMO...).
DRDOS is almost compatible to MSDOS, a friend of mine had a problem
with a program which did not run under DRDOS (don't know the name
of the program, but it is something uncommon...) apart from that
everythig runs fine..
-Mike
Danny ter Haar
>
>One of my conclusions: DR-DOS is slow, both in screen access (in
>its utilities like the editor (Wordstar-like!) and help) as well
>as in accessing files (which affects taskswitching too). Slow screen
>access because the DR-programmers presumably access the screen in a
>way (DOS-function calls) that permits redirecting but is generally
>considered old-fashioned.
>I measured file access (read/write,sequential/random) with and w/o
>caching. It revealed that without any caching, DR-DOS is as twice as
>slow as MS-DOS 5.0.
I can't agree here, on floppy disks it takes longer to actually detect
there has been a disk change.
>As was the case with DR-DOS 5.0 that I tested a
>year before. But with its disk caching program SuperPCKwik, DR-DOS
>reaches the performance of MS-DOS 5.0-without-caching.
hmm, give me figures, because our tests didn't say so ...
>However, SuperPCKwik itself was far superior compared to Smartdrive!
>When I combined MS-DOS with DR-DOS' SuperPCKwik, I got the utmost
>performance!
>
>Despite the fact Digital Research provided an update disk to its original
>release of DR-DOS 6.0, I found numerous annoying little bugs in
>DR-DOS.
The update disk was intended for being able to run microsofts windows 3.1
by substituting another memory manager that was more compatible to
Microsofts id of memory management.... NOT a bug fix ..
>To me, this means they didn't test the product well enough, so
>(theoretically) you don't know what giant mistakes are waiting to come
>up!
Microsofts engineers claimes that the way Digital Research was handling
memory management was impossible to combine with microsoft's way.
>I didn't experience any compatibility problems with the usual application
>packages. Everything ran fine. However, on the programmer's level (API)
>there are numerous differences (see Ralph Brown's interrupt list), so
>programs that exploit some esoteric details of MS-DOS may experience
>problems with DR-DOS.
>
You mean some of the undocumented DOS calls wich don't work?
I guess they should be documented in order to get support....
I too think it's a shame some that progs like certain versions of PC-NFS
don't work on my DRDOS but i've found other progs that will do the job.
>After testing DR-DOS I quickly switched back to MS-DOS. But I kept using
>SuperStor (DR-DOS' storage compression program) for a while. Then later,
>I discovered a serious error with SuperStor, of which I can't tell if it
>will occur when you use it with DR-DOS. A few times a week I lost the
>first cluster of some arbitrary file I was frequently editing. The file
>was there, but the first 16 sectors (= 1 cluster) were filled
>with ASCII-0.
Was't it a plain hardware fault, or a bug in MS-DOS ? :-)
I have installed more than 100 systems during the time DRDOS is out now
and none of them gave me any of such errors...
>My conclusion about DR-DOS 6.0: it isn't as stable as MS-DOS 5.0, it is
>slow especially if you have an older machine (286 or below),
You have more memory on a 286 with memory manager than with MS-DOS5 so...
>it has more-advanced additional utilities then MS-DOS 5.0 had (and even
>MS-DOS 6.0 has), but some are rather buggy, and may be SuperStor has a
>serious error.
>On the other hand, (to me) MS-DOS has proven to be a stable platform
>since version 5.0. To me, this goes for version 6.0 as well, despite
>all flames and disaster reports in this newsgroup.
Microsoft did a good job in cloning DRDOS6 by taking SMDOS5 and buying
some nice utils from big companys and serving it as a new OS...
DRDOS had disk-doubling and excellent help/setup already SINCE 1991 !!
Microsoft's marketing department is certainly better than their (dos)
development department.
>Reported troubles
>with DBLSPACE seem related to the use of a write-cache, which is
>dangerous anyway, but especially with on-the-fly compression.
What about the know >300 bugs/tips/updates about MSDOS6?
Don't you think it is rather buggy ?
>By the way, I'm not a spokesman of Microsoft, nor have I any reason
>to promote Microsoft products.
>
Nor am I.
But how can I exlain to a customers that he/she has 4 Megabyte of
Memory but if he/she wants to do a diskcopy, he.she will have to swap disks
a couple of time because the wonderfull 'Operating Systems' utilities won't
allow him to read more than halve a disk a time ??
>Maarten Meijer (mme...@cc.ruu.nl)
> ACCU -- Academic Computing Centre Utrecht University --
> Budapestlaan 8, P.O.Box 80011, 3508 TA Utrecht, Netherlands.
> phone (31)30531660 / fax (31)30531633
Danny ter Haar
--
"I finally realized why Windows is truly multitasking. I find myself keeping
some secondary task handy (like drinking coffee) so I can make good use of the
time I spend waiting for Windows."
Andrew Zaitsev
I didn't run tests either, but since I upgraded from MS-DOS 5 to DR-DOS 6
and installed PC-KWIK, my system feels like a sportscar! (ugh, couldn't
think of better way to say it :) ).
Mark Aitchison, rm814,ext6947
>What is this stuff about DR-DOS 6.0 being slow ?
It seems that DRDOS reads disk sectors into a temporary buffer a sector at a time
under some circumstances, for compatibility with some hardware (? I can't remember
the details). Normally, though, you'd run SuperPCK, which makes all that irrelevant.
I like DRDOS, I think their support is better, the product has been out longer and is
generally more stable. I know of some details of incompatibilities, but then I know of some bugs in good old MSDOS 3.3 (involving STTY and the delete key)... pretty unimportant. For example, DRDOS maintains a table of information in the "undocumented" list-of-lists for compatibility purposes, but it is read-only - if a program or virus
modifies it (normal programs shouldn't, of course) then the modification has no effect.
Another incompatibility is the value of a particular register that has a certain value under most versions of MSDOS at the time the first driver is called in CONFIG.SYS. This
is totally undocumented (I won't even tell you the details) but is used by at least one
"menu" program for config.sys files. Another difference was in some versions of DRDOS
5, which cured the bug in MSDOS where a command like DEL *ABC.*K would do a delete *.*
(unfortunately when DRDOS fixed that bug it was "incompatible" so they replaced the original, bugfgy MSDOS functionality).
---
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Aitchison, Physics & Astronomy Phone : +64 3 3642-947 a.h. 3371-225
University of Canterbury, Fax : +64 3 3642-469 or 3642-999
Christchurch, New Zealand. E-mail: phy...@csc.canterbury.ac.nz
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dale K Ogilvie
>Sub: msdos/drdos?
We've been using DRDOS6 at work since it's introduction. 1 or 2 (literally)
programs had problems but in the vast majority of cases everthing runs like
a charm. Running DRDOS + superpck my system ran fast and well, adding
superstor for double disk capacity I didn't notice any speed degradation on
a 386-40, slower processors would likely show a decrease in performance
though. What few incompatibilities I noticed early after the release seem to
have dried up after the win 3.1 update. Haven't had one for ages.
As for support, I was pleased to recieve my win 3.1 update from both our NZ
distributor *and* from the US.
DRDOS6 is great, and MS shows that it agrees in it's release of the MSDOS6
upgrade. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...
Dale Ogilvie
Mike West
: Sub: msdos/drdos?
: ... I can't find any newsgroup that is devoted entirely to DRDOS;
There is is the correct group to post DR DOS questions.
: ..., I wonder if it is entirely compatible with all programs that work with
: MSDOS (that is,to the extent that they work at all).
I believe there are a couple of programs out there that won't work, but I
have never found them. It appears to be remarkably compatible. The only
major problem it has had was with Windows 3.1. But DR quickly came out with
a patch that fixed the problem.
: ... Does Digital Research provide good user support?
They have been great for me.
: ... I have a low end system- 16 Mhz 286, 80 meg IDE
: hard drive, CGA graphics, running mostly "old things" like Word Perfect 5.1,
: New PrintShop, Procomm Plus, etc.
From my experience, DR DOS is *great* for a 286. Its memory management
is better than MS DOS, and if you have a C&T chipset (with built-in EMS
control), DR DOS's memory driver can recognize it and take advantage of
it.
DR DOS also includes a version of PC Kwik disk cache that is better than
anything that MS has produced, a version of SuperStor 1.1 for disk
compression, and a task switcher that is supposed to be tops (I have
personally never used it). It has an excellent help system and a much
better COMMAND.COM. Also there is a (fairly useless) GUI.
I have no idea when 7 will come out, but the earliest I have heard of is
end of summer, and that will probably slip (don't they all :-( ). My
suggestion would be to find the best price and go ahead an get it. You
might also try misc.forsale.computers.pc-clone to see if anyone is trying
to sell their copy. I really liked it. (I have since managed to get a
new motherboard and use OS/2.)
Hope this helps.
Mike West
we...@esd.dl.nec.com
johnson scott andrew
>In article <mmeijer.739446197@accucx> mme...@cc.ruu.nl (Maarten Meijer) writes:
>
>>I didn't experience any compatibility problems with the usual application
>>packages. Everything ran fine. However, on the programmer's level (API)
>>there are numerous differences (see Ralph Brown's interrupt list), so
>>programs that exploit some esoteric details of MS-DOS may experience
>>problems with DR-DOS.
>>
I tried downloading Ralph Brown's list, took it home and unZIPped (or whatever
compression scheme it was using), and got the file RB33.NG.
Excuse my ignorance, but what is an .NG file???? And how do I read it???
Thanx in advance,
/sj/
Andrew Zaitsev
I'ver never seen Norton Guides being sold in a software store, though.
Is it a part of new Norton Utils ?
ar...@waikato.ac.nz
> Sub: msdos/drdos?
>
> read nearly 100% favorable comments about it in this corner (which makes
Till now ...
> I wonder if it is entirely compatible with all programs that work with
> MSDOS (that is,to the extent that they work at all).
Compatability seems no prob ... I did have one or two older protected games
that wouldn't work. (No worse than MSDOS 6)
But, I had memory problems on a 386DX-16, as soon as I ran DRDOS6's EMM386.EXE
my system hung ... no way around it, but that shouldn't be a bother with your
286. The limited SUPERSTORE is no better than DBLSPACE from what I can see, in
fact, you can not change it's size without deleting the whole thing and
replacing it ... a bummer! SUPERPCK & SMARTDRV (Disk Caches) would both cause
my floppy drives to error when I gave them more than 1MB of Cache. Maybe the
MSDOS vrius scanner isn't horrendously effective, but at least it has one.
BACKUP is the same old command line, non-compressing stuff as DOS5.0. The
Disk Optimizer doesn't defragment files on a compressed volume (same as
MSDOS6.0) I was unable to get the Command Recall stack to work in a DOS SHELL
from Windows.
Anyway ... I find MSDOS6.0 190% better to use than DRDOS6.0, a lot of the
missing features are supposed to be in DRDOS7.0, but I'm finally happy that
my machine is doing everything I couldn't get DRDOS6.0 to do !!! I did
manage to stuff up the DRDOS6.0 starting of SUPERSTORE, corrupting my HD,
but have not (yet) stuffed up Double Space (I have turned off WriteBack
Cache under SMARTDRV to help this).
Arron Scott
Just an Operator
University Of Waikato
NZ
Onny Carr
: replacing it ... a bummer! SUPERPCK & SMARTDRV (Disk Caches) would both cause
: my floppy drives to error when I gave them more than 1MB of Cache. Maybe the
This never gave me a problem. I've been using DR-DOS 6 for over a year
and a half now, with very little problems.
: MSDOS vrius scanner isn't horrendously effective, but at least it has one.
Report has it that Novell will include a version of Fifth Generation's
Search and Destroy antivirus software with DOS 7. Not that I'll use it,
mind you. I trust Frisk's F-Prot infinitely more than any commercial
virus scanner.
: Disk Optimizer doesn't defragment files on a compressed volume (same as
I've used Superstor all this time with no problems. I defragment my Sstor
volumes regularly. No problems.
: MSDOS6.0) I was unable to get the Command Recall stack to work in a DOS SHELL
: from Windows.
I've never had that problem.
: Anyway ... I find MSDOS6.0 190% better to use than DRDOS6.0, a lot of the
: missing features are supposed to be in DRDOS7.0, but I'm finally happy that
The main reason I chose DR-DOS 6.0 over MS-DOS 5.0 (at the time) were its
utilities. Microsoft didn't even have a MOVE command until they released
MS-DOS 6.0!! These small utilities, plus their major ones (Sstor & SPCKwik)
were the reasons why I opted for DR-DOS 6.0. MS-DOS 6.0 looks to me
like a simple copy, a 'catch-up' version of DOS.
The only things I didn't like with DR-DOS 6.0 were its tortoise-like
floppy disk access, and the fact that their version of Superstor can't
be loaded high. (Commercial Superstor can).
Personally, if you want the BEST configuration, I'd stick with
MS-DOS 5.0, buy a copy of Superstor (or Stacker, whatever), and
replace COMMAND.COM with 4DOS. Get a cache, too. This way,
you'll have the compatibility of DOS 5.0, a doubled disk, a cache,
and all the nifty utilities of 4DOS to make your everyday tasks
MUCH, MUCH EASIER.
--
--------------------+---------------+---------------------------------
Onny Carr | /\ ^ /\ | __ | _ | ____|
opc...@netcom.com | (o ^ o) | | | | | |
opc...@holonet.net | /^\ | | | ___| |
10@5058 WWIVNet | ( ^-----^ ) | ______| __| ______|
--------------------+---------------+---------------------------------
Frank Slootweg at CRC
> I wonder if it is entirely compatible with all programs that work with
> MSDOS (that is,to the extent that they work at all).
Most software works. I had two programs which did not work. In both
cases the programs were broken (i.e. not conforming to standards), not
DR DOS 6.0.
> Does Digital Research provide good user support?
I think so, and I am in software support myself.
> I have a low end system- 16 Mhz 286, 80 meg IDE hard drive, CGA
> graphics, ...
I have a 2MB 386DX, but I understand that for 286's DR DOS 6.0 is at
least as good (read: provides a large available base memory) as MS-DOS
5.0.
> Glancing at a magazine recently I saw a
> price of $51 for DRDOS 6.0, plus shipping (didn't get the company name but I
> can pick up the mag at the store again in a few days). If I do switch over I
> need to do so within the next 1-2 months. Is the wait for the 7.0 worth it
> to me, or should I go with a good price on 6.0?
While I do not have detailed information on 7.0, I think that, unless
you have several megabytes of main memory on your 286, you probably
should go with a good price on 6.0.
Frank "Very satisfied DR DOS 6.0 customer!" Slootweg
P.S. In my opinion the stories of slow disk access (Don't know about
"slow" screen access.) on DR DOS 6.0 are either uninformed or not
comparing apples-to-apples. As another poster said "my system feels
like a sportscar!" (I used MS-DOS 3.3 with SmartDrive before
switching to DR DOS 6.0.).
Patrik Asselman
: P.S. In my opinion the stories of slow disk access (Don't know about
: "slow" screen access.) on DR DOS 6.0 are either uninformed or not
: comparing apples-to-apples. As another poster said "my system feels
: like a sportscar!" (I used MS-DOS 3.3 with SmartDrive before
: switching to DR DOS 6.0.).
I too used MS-DOS 3.30 before DR DOS 6.0 (Without SmartDrive, though),
I liked DR-DOS pretty good, especially with the SuperStor facility that
worked pretty well on my 20Mb harddisk (which could not be said for
Stacker at that time!). But my disk-drive access WAS very
ssslllooowwwww. No matter what I tried! Now I Installed MS-DOS 6.0, and
disk-access has really improved! I can't judge yet if MS-DOS is better
than DR-DOS, because I've only haid it for two days now, but I do know
that DR-DOS has a much better worked out installation programme.
The way I see it, MicroSoft has improved its DOS because they were
losing a piece of their market share to Digital Research. (But I may be
fatally wrong about this) And improvement is what we all want, isn't it?
I hope that there will be an improved DR-DOS soon, and then an improved
MD-DOS, etc, etc. It'll keep us all busy
---Patrick---
rcb...@urc.tue.nl