[SD-User] Re: Boot to DOS

[Martin Davies G0HDB]

On 2 Jul 2002 at 12:01, sd-user-request@contesting.com wrote:

> Message: 1
> From: "Geoff Morris" <gw3atz@btopenworld.com>
> To: <sd-user@contesting.com>
> Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2002 18:40:02 +0100
> Subject: [SD-User] Re: boot to DOS
> 
> Hi.
> 
> A windows version would be nice. Bit of a pain this DOS stuff. I'am
> sure a lot more features could be added.

NOOOOOOOO!!!!!  Windows is a real balls-ache for 'real-time' systems; that's 
why almost no-one uses it in such applications.  Anyway, what extra features 
does SD desperately need?  None that I can think of - both SD and SDX 
work great for me.

DOS is NOT a pain, it just needs a modicum of an understanding of the 
underlying system and a rudimentary knowledge of the command-line mode 
of operation.  It has the great advantage of being *entirely* suitable for a 
large number of amateur-radio related apps such as packet terminals and 
logging programs, and enables them to be run on simple, cheap, low power 
and usually reliable hardware.

I run SD under Novell DOS 7.00 (aka Caldera OpenDOS V7.03a) on a 
100MHz 5x86-based PC with 56M of RAM.  I can task-switch with a single 
keystroke between several different DOS apps all running in separate virtual 
DOS machines; I usually have paKet 6.2 for DXCluster access, SD (or another
logging program such as LOGEQF) and something like GEOCLOCK running 24 x 7.
The system might crash every few months, but reboots in about 20secs.

I'm happy to use Windows (98SE at present) where it's appropriate,
eg for composing this email and for office-type apps (Word, Excel, etc) but
give me DOS anyday for most radio-related applications.  One of these days
I really must have a go with Linux....!!

PLEASE Paul, don't succumb to the lure of the Windoze sirens and turn SD 
into yet another bloatware program that needs the equivalent of a Cray 1
to run with anything like a decent performance and is over-burdened with 
exotic and obscure facilities that no-one ever uses :)))

--
73, Martin G0HDB