Kodi 
Anatoly Shashkin💾I miss the days when a brand new OS would just let you reboot into a legacy OS. Happy 28th birthday to Windows 95! 🎉🎂🎈🍾🥂
Ursidinoj/The Bjornsdottirs@dosnostalgic Yeah, where's my "reboot --v6unix"? Or --cpm? :P
Count Regal Inkwell@dosnostalgic let's be fair: Windows wasn't letting you "boot into the legacy OS", it was just letting you quit out of the shell, because at the time, it was literally just a fancy GUI shell for DOS, and remained so (for home users, enterprise users got NT in the early 90s) until Windows XP
@vinesnfluff No. Windows 9x was not "just a fancy GUI shell for DOS". In fact it was sort of the other way around. It was a full on standalone OS that had legacy DOS support fully integrated in its kernel. But if you wanted an actual MS-DOS you had to reboot. There was nothing to quit to, as DOS 7 that was used as a bootloader was completely gone by the time Win9x was running.
@vinesnfluff Here's Raymond Chen, the guy who was essentially responsible for DOS in Windows, on how that actually worked:
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20071224-00/?p=24063
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20071224-00/?p=24063
@dosnostalgic [goes cosmic]
I see.
Speaktrap@dosnostalgic @vinesnfluff More like Raymond CHAD for me, this guy is awesome even though I hate Windows and M$
@speaktrap @dosnostalgic Microshaft has done *good work* for Tech.
DirectX as a whole, bringing Multitasking and GUIs to mainstream PCs, the fact that they gave IBM the slip allowing for the entire "PC Compatible" ecosystem, which made computers cheaper over time.
They were never incompetent... They were always evil. "Lawful Evil" to use DnD words :P
@vinesnfluff @dosnostalgic
DirectX wasn't really needed as there was already OpenGL, which was much superior according to John Carmack, and I trust this guy.
OS/2 had multitasking before Windows.
Liberation of PC platform was a bit more compicated and I am pretty convinced it would take off with or without Gates anyway.
DirectX wasn't really needed as there was already OpenGL, which was much superior according to John Carmack, and I trust this guy.
OS/2 had multitasking before Windows.
Liberation of PC platform was a bit more compicated and I am pretty convinced it would take off with or without Gates anyway.
@speaktrap @dosnostalgic while I ain't got sources for it, I'd bet a lot of money that the reason Carmack preferred OpenGL was that it allowed him to code closer to the bare metal, which is great if, like Carmack, you're basically a space alien level supergenius.
For everyone else, a library like DX that distanced you from the hardware (especially with how diverse PC hardware had become at that point) and provided a common layer of abstraction between it and software made development of applications infinitely easier.
As for OS/2 I'd have to double check the timeline... But I'm fairly sure it dropped *after* windows 3.0.
... And either way it was codeveloped by the microshaft team and a lot of its code got used on windows too.
Kristian@dosnostalgic @vinesnfluff when the black screen told you in orange letters that it was safe to shut the computer off, you literally had a shell, you just had to run the commands to clear the screen. Not saying win95 was just a fancy gui for dos, nor do I remember how functional that shell was given that I was in primary school when I messed around with it, but it was at the very least somewhat functional.
@kly @dosnostalgic aaaand now you got me wanting to set up win9x on 86box just to try that
@vinesnfluff @kly Try it. On a clean install it should do no such thing.
Jernej Simončič �@dosnostalgic @vinesnfluff @kly It's been years, but IIRC, if you boot to MS-DOS mode, run
win to start Windows, then select Shut Down, it'll have a prompt behind the "It's safe to shut down" screen (and you can run cls to actually see it). If you boot Windows normally, there's no prompt.@dosnostalgic @kly Well paint me purple and call me "Twilight", it actually works.
The process goes:
Load Windows -> Exit to DOS mode -> Load windows again -> Shut down -> When in the screen just do "cls"-enter and this happens
@dosnostalgic @kly PS this was a clean install. Or, cleanish. I did install the drivers needed to get sound/graphics properly out of 86box, cuz if I was setting this up, I might as well have it ready to screw around with some gaems.
@dosnostalgic @kly Bonus: If you type 'win' instead of 'cls' it goes back to windows.
@vinesnfluff @kly Yeah, so I've done some testing. When you "Restart in MS-DOS mode" 95 runs its command.com. You can see it still sitting in memory when you do MEM after booting Win from it. That's what you're quitting into when you're on the shutdown screen. It's a 16 bit program that 95 kept running, since it was there before Windows was loaded. But that's not the case when it starts normally.
@dosnostalgic @kly Fascinating, actually.
Lil' oversight, doesn't actually change the OS's experience. But still cool to learn about.
@vinesnfluff @kly Oh, and if you properly exit DOS 7 using EXIT, then it actually quits, 95 loads, and once again you can do nothing on the shutdown screen.
sj_zeroAlthough MS-DOS remains resident, my understanding at least is that Windows 9x is still an operating system and not just a shell because doesn't use the dos calls for what it does. For example, it implements 32-bit disc algorithms, unique video algorithms, it manages the keyboard on its own, it basically does everything and it just happens to do it on top of MS-DOS as a bootloader.
I believe there was an equivalent under linux called loadlin that would let you bootstrap Linux from dos, and it even let you use some ms-dos drivers to provide functions for unsupported devices like cd-roms, just as windows can gain functions from media device drivers despite ideally running pure windows drivers instead.
I believe there was an equivalent under linux called loadlin that would let you bootstrap Linux from dos, and it even let you use some ms-dos drivers to provide functions for unsupported devices like cd-roms, just as windows can gain functions from media device drivers despite ideally running pure windows drivers instead.
@sj_zero @vinesnfluff @kly You're agreeing with me. MS-DOS only remains resident if a 16 bit program happens to be running before DOS 7 bootloader is started. That happens for compatibility reasons. Normally 9x doesn't need DOS, and it unloads everything after the bootloader had done its job. Then if a DOS program has been started, it's handled by the Windows kernel.
Yes I am. I started the research for my next book a little while ago, and that's what I found. I was surprised that despite living on top of DOS 7, win 9x was a fully fledged OS and not just a shell on top of ms-dos.
@sj_zero @vinesnfluff @kly I edited my post to more obviously assert that Win 9x does not, in fact, live on top of DOS 7. Once it's running it kicks DOS 7 out. However, Win9x also does everything DOS does, so it doesn't need it in the first place.
@vinesnfluff @kly Now bonus:
When you start 95 normally, go and rename Command.com in WINDOWS directory to something else. That's it. No more restarting in MS-DOS, no more command prompt in 95, no more Command Prompt Only from the boot menu. But 95 will still load, and besides the prompt you're able to run any DOS program, and minimize them, and try to put them in windowed mode, etc.
Everything works as intended.
When you start 95 normally, go and rename Command.com in WINDOWS directory to something else. That's it. No more restarting in MS-DOS, no more command prompt in 95, no more Command Prompt Only from the boot menu. But 95 will still load, and besides the prompt you're able to run any DOS program, and minimize them, and try to put them in windowed mode, etc.
Everything works as intended.
@kly @vinesnfluff That only happened when you had a shitty DOS driver sitting in memory refusing to shut down. That command prompt was still very much Windows. If you didn't, there's nothing you could do on that screen besides shut your machine off.
Becky…OW! My back! My knees! My organs!
Tim 🎮@dosnostalgic clear options, obvious ways to cancel completely out of it if you clicked by mistake, dimming the rest of the screen so it took your focus and gave you the power, and a help button that actually tried to help.
No dark patterns, no marketing, no patronising, no "this nameless system icon is preventing your computer from restarting", no "we rebooted automatically for updates, all your work is gone and all your tabs will reload". I miss not arguing with my PC just to get things done.
@dosnostalgic oh, and no "other people might lose work if you restart now!" on my own literal personal computer that nobody else has an account on, nevermind is logged into. It's terrible how much we're forced to just accept our own possessions flat out lying to us on a daily basis.
appzer0 - Libertadmin@timixretroplays @dosnostalgic that. Yes, OSes must be boring to be good OSes.
@appzer0 @dosnostalgic it's not even about being boring - they're tools! They should do what they're told to do, anything else is hostile to users.
wednesday the valkyrja@dosnostalgic i have access to a computer still running this.
it's not mine, it's my mother's from college. the OS is older than me, but loved using that computer growing up lol.
windows 11 could learn a thing or two from past versions. sometimes less is more.
Григорий Клюшниковwednesday the valkyrja, the incentives in the modern IT industry are all wrong, very wrong. And there's hardly any competition nowadays.
kccqzy@dosnostalgic @codinghorror This prompt and the buttons just felt weird to me. The question begins with "are you sure you want to" so it looks like a yes-no question, and the buttons are for a yes-no question and yet it is actually a multiple choice question!
Why didn't they rephrase the prompt to be "what would you like to do", remove the question marks from the selections, and change the buttons to read "continue" and "cancel" respectively?
tultican@dosnostalgic Still upset that Microsoft was able to hide the 95 code and put Word Perfect, Borland and other competitors out of business. Thanks Bill Clinton.
Stephen Hoffman@dosnostalgic VAX/VMS circa 1978 used to boot with PDP-11 RSX-11M compatibility mode available and a fair chunk of the apps in the early VAX/VMS versions were RSX-11M apps running in compatibility mode.
The VAX-11 boxes supported PDP-11 instructions in hardware.
You could run your existing PDP-11 RSX-11M apps directly, too.
That all ended at VAX/VMS V4.0 (~1984), and with then-new VAX models after VAX 8600.
VAX 8600 was originally to be named VAX-11/790, but marketing marketed and dropped the -11 with the “architecture for the ‘80s”.
PDP-11 RSX-11M compatibility mode became a separate product, and the PDP-11 instructions were emulated, and the -11 was dropped from VAX.
Technically, an LSI-11 console processor booted RT-11 from the 8” console floppy which then booted the VAX-11/780 (organizationally within he hardware, the VAX was an enormous LSI-11 peripheral) which ran VAX and PDP-11 instructions and which could run simh emulator to emulate PDP-11 running RT-11. If the LSI-11 failed—as happened on a couple of occasions—the VAX could continue to run. Just not reboot.
The approach Apple used for migrations with Rosetta and Rosetta 2 was far smoother.
Yeah. Fun times. When it all worked.
There are shenanigans in newer boxes too, but they’re usually somewhat better hidden.
#digitalequipmentcorporation #OpenVMS #VMS #VAX #PDP11 #RSX11 #RSX11M #RT11 #retrocomputers #retrocomputing #history
Ian Douglas Scott@HoffmanLabs @dosnostalgic "Windows XP Mode" was an... interesting approach as well.
@ids1024 @dosnostalgic If you want to see where the Windows NT design arose, look no further than the DEC MICA operating system:
The approach Apple used for migrations with Rosetta and Rosetta 2 was far smoother.
NT had (16-bit) x86 emulation on non-x86 Windows version from the beginning (then DEC made 32-bit x86 support for NT Alpha). Nowadays ARM64 Windows runs both x86 and x64 programs.
@jernej__s @dosnostalgic I’m well aware of DEC’s FX!32. Running 32-bit apps built for cheaper 32-bit x86-32 hardware on pricy 64-bit hardware running 32-bit apps was a bravely doomed strategy, in retrospect. DEC couldn’t do 64-bit with FX!32 (joke: FX!64) because Microsoft couldn’t do 64-bit. (The 1999 Microsoft PDC in Denver describing how easy their planned 64-bit migration was to be was amusing, having then just gone through a 32- to 64-bit OS migration else-platform.)
DEC also had DECmigrate (VEST and TIE, and later AEST and TIE) for migrating apps from OpenVMS VAX to Alpha and from OpenVMS Alpha to Itanium. SimH (which I’ve coincidentally mentioned in a joke recently) works well, as does UTM.
Lots of other platforms gave have or have had emulators or translators.
Among its other weirdnesses, Itanium had a feedback-based translator for executables, which sorta-kinda fits here, to incorporate observed run-time behavior back into the existing executables. Basically, post-linking feedback tuning thst produced different executables. This as the compilers inherently lacked visibility into the run-time memory state and latencies of a particular Itanium processor, and had to guess. One name ror this stuff was OM, and its translatiin escaped me at the time.
Of what I’ve worked with for app (and not system) emulators, Rosetta was both the most transparent, and the most compatible.
Christian Tietze@dosnostalgic Ah, fond childhood memories :)
Looking back now, it's so awkward how you needed to pick 1 of 3 radio button questions and then confirm with "yes".
Or pick something and decline with "no", which makes the picking useless.
Great times
Iαn has moved account@dosnostalgic
I'm glad those days are gone. Many forget how primitive and limited things were back then.
Even worse than today's digital mess.
I'm glad those days are gone. Many forget how primitive and limited things were back then.
Even worse than today's digital mess.
Greg Smith@dosnostalgic I had a machine in the office with a PCM/CIA Flash card programmer in it. Needed to be in DOS mode for the programmer software to work, and needed to be in W95 in order to transfer the data on the network. We just put up with stuff like that back then.
John Vert@dosnostalgic You would have loved the old Windows NT bootloader which let you boot multiple different versions of the OS out of different subdirectories. (e.g. C:\NT3.1, C:\NT35, C:\NTbeta, etc)