Shopsmith Forums

Win 98? Are you serious?

I know we all have our own preferences but I would say Win 95 was good, but Win 98 was a step back. Win XP was a big improvement and probably the most stable of all of MS Windows OS'es. I know some businesses are still using Win XP all these years later, but scary from a security standpoint. My favorite now is Win 10 and I believe it is nearly as good as XP, though I believe XP was a bit more stable. I started on Commodore computers and then did a little VAX work. I grudgingly got onto Windows PC's with DOS and Win 3.1. It was hard for me at first, but I have learned to become platform independent. It took me sometime to make that mental shift, but technology changes all the time and it is best to not be married to one OS, one PC or even one technology per se. Even applies to woodworking, e.g. I was a SS devotee for a long time, but I now I have expanded to Festool as well. I have tried most of the OS'es out there for personal and work use. So, I love Unix/Linux and Win 10, but I even tolerate Mac OS though I don't like it.

If thee desires stability, use DOS!

JPG wrote: ↑Sun Jan 22, 2023 12:48 pm If thee desires stability, use DOS!

Ha!!! Well, MS-DOS is a single command line system, so I guess it all depends on what one program one chooses to run right? I am sure there are more than a few poorly written software programs that can crash MS-DOS as easy as any other. In comparison UNIX (without a window manager) is a multi tasking OS unlike MS-DOS. I am no OS expert, but I thought the memory management is better than MS-DOS so I am giving the nod to UNIX here.

P.S. Note I am specifically calling out MS-DOS here. There were other versions of DOS done for other computer platforms that rivaled what MS did for the IBM PC and its clones. Don't know how stable all the different DOS varieties actually were, but probably same argument can be made for/against them.

UMMV, but I NEVER experienced a DOS crash. Now thingies running under DOS, that is another universe.

If multi tasking, one had better have absolute memory management control!!!

There was MS Dos that ran on most any pc, then there was IBM Dos that had code added that tied into IBM bios and made math and other functions much faster. However at the time we were all enchanted with the speed of practically any PC so the speed difference was lost to most PC nerds of the time. Then MS windows came out as did IBM OS which got renamed Warp after a few upgrades. I know little or nothing of Linux but what I knew of warp it seems to be the building block for linux. Unix was a commercial offering for business intelligent terminals.
I believe Apple based their OS on Unix which made it very hard to infect with viruses ( I did not say impossible) but very hard. I think they have moved away from that since writing their OS for the M1 &2 chips. Before you barf out over MS Dos remember it is a product of two teenage nerds in their father's garage. The contract with IBM to supply the operating system for the PC is what launched the then infant company.

I think my recall is good but remember I bridged out of IBM in 92 and formally retired in 97 so it has been awhile. But before I left I was deep into developing commercial services for the PC and I think the operating system WARP was just being withdrawn.

OS/2 Warp is still around. It is now ArcaOS 5.0. I have supported OS/2, DOS, Windows, Solaris, and Linux for many years in the desktop environment and many servers. Linux is by far the best. It's everywhere. Linux is in your TV, Phone, DVR, and any electronics you have labeled smart has some version of Linux.

And android?

JPG wrote: ↑Sat Jan 28, 2023 11:08 amAnd android?

Yes, Android is Linux based OS.