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Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 08:46:59 -0400
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
Organization: No Conspiracy Here...
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Jonadab the Unsightly One wrote:

> lraszewski@loyola.edu (L. Ross Raszewski) wrote:
> > At a guess, I'd say that the problems suggested with old DOS programs
> > all stem from a single source; it used to be common practice to rely
> > on the CPU speed to get the timings right in games, rather than the
> > "proper" way of relyign on the system clock. Games which use no-op
> > loops to make the timing work run too fast under modern processors.
> Only the oldest things break that way.  But _many_ DOS apps
> break under Windows.  Even things like Lotus 123 don't work
> properly.  The DOS version of Descent doesn't work right in
> Win 95 either; runs fine in DOS 6 on the same PC.  I could
> list a couple dozen such programs, but the list isn't important.

These are--from what I know of the problem--mostly changes to the BIOS and
DOS (software) interrupt system.  For those people who don't know the
setup, DOS doesn't really have an API like most systems.  Instead, it
usurps the interrupt-handling mechanism to provide services.
Unfortunately, while backward-compatibility has always been a concern for
the "Microsoftians," it's not always feasible when something is in need of
an overhaul.

I've heard that the FreeDOS people, however, have done a pretty darn good
job of reproducing old versions of DOS.  There was, if I'm not mistaken, a
project or two to do the same for Windows, but that fell apart when too
many people joined who wanted "better" than Windows, if I remember
correctly...


