tDOS could run off a 360 KB floppy in as little as 64kb
of ram (a little more WAS desirable). There was a little
space left over on the floppy. CP/M could do it in a
little less. You can argue they're *almost* the same OS.

Now we're talking KILObytes here, not MEGAbytes or GIGAbytes.

DOS and CP/M were indeed operating systems - they managed
the system and resources, kinda virtualized some I/O
devices, you could write proper programs and DO stuff
with them well beyond the microcontroller world. Hey,
VisiCalc, Lotus-123, WordStar, Quattro, Novell/Lantastic
networking ... BIG game-changers all in under a megabyte
of RAM and off a little floppy disk (dual floppies were
desired however).

Oh, and there was also XENIX/SCO Unix that would run on
those tiny old boxes (though it wasn't cheap).

Today, about the smallest Linux images use up 25-100
MEGAbytes for just a basic CL terminal. You'd need
about 15 of those old floppies just to boot 'em.

Do they do 15-25 times more stuff ?

Yes, modern Linux is "nicer", but at a size/performance
COST. Not everyone is developing for the latest hottest
i9 game box ya know. <=640kb ram and 4.77Mhz CPU are
actually attractive to certain segments.

Am 21.08.2023 um 00:56:30 Uhr schrieb 51b.1055:

> Today, about the smallest Linux images use up 25-100
> MEGAbytes for just a basic CL terminal. You'd need
> about 15 of those old floppies just to boot 'em.
>
> Do they do 15-25 times more stuff ?

The kernel does support much, much more things, including hardware
support for new and old devices.

Almost nobody cares about 200 MB for a kernel today, as almost nobody
uses such ancient hardware for modern operating systems.

I remember that some people use 586 with current kernel to test drivers
for ISA/VLB cards, but that is the exception rather than the rule.
512 MB is ok for booting up current Linux, 20 year old computers have
that amount of RAM or can be upgraded.

51b.1055 <51b.1055@qtq9.net> wrote:
> tDOS could run off a 360 KB floppy in as little as 64kb
> of ram (a little more WAS desirable). There was a little
> space left over on the floppy. CP/M could do it in a
> little less. You can argue they're *almost* the same OS.
>
> Now we're talking KILObytes here, not MEGAbytes or GIGAbytes.
>
> DOS and CP/M were indeed operating systems - they managed
> the system and resources, kinda virtualized some I/O
> devices, you could write proper programs and DO stuff
> with them well beyond the microcontroller world.

You did need to set up your own TSR drivers for sound, mouse,
networking, etc. to use those extra hardware featres that come
either built into Linux kernels or loaded from modules (assuming
the hardware is supported).

Surprisingly some hardware manufacturers still publish MS-DOS
drivers.

> Hey,
> VisiCalc, Lotus-123, WordStar, Quattro, Novell/Lantastic
> networking ... BIG game-changers all in under a megabyte
> of RAM and off a little floppy disk (dual floppies were
> desired however).

Ahem:
https://krzysztofjankowski.com/floppinux/

> Oh, and there was also XENIX/SCO Unix that would run on
> those tiny old boxes (though it wasn't cheap).
>
> Today, about the smallest Linux images use up 25-100
> MEGAbytes for just a basic CL terminal. You'd need
> about 15 of those old floppies just to boot 'em.

Besides FLOPPINUX, also not with OpenWrt. My router running OpenWrt
22.03 has 4.3MB of storage used, including 45 installed packages on
top of the bare minimum system (mostly kernel module packages
because OpenWrt comes with very little built into the kernel). Drop
a couple of packages and it would fit on three floppy disks.

> Do they do 15-25 times more stuff ?

It is true that the minimum requirements for something like OpenWrt
keep getting bigger, while it doesn't do anything more. I'd be
quite interested in an OpenWrt-like distro based on one of the CIP
LTS Linux kernels. v6.1 is currently set to be supported until 2033.
That would particularly suit an embedded application which only
needs security updates, no extra bloat with new features that will
never be used. But you have to compile everything yourself to use
it because, so far as I know, no distro is based on the CIP kernels.

https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/civilinfrastructureplatform/start

Actually it looks like they are trying to do something along the
lines of a minimal Debian-based dristro with the same support
period:

https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/civilinfrastructureplatform/cip-core

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

Marco Moock <mo01@posteo.de> wrote:
> 512 MB is ok for booting up current Linux, 20 year old computers have
> that amount of RAM or can be upgraded.

I just read an announcement that the computer from 2003 that's
running the news server that I'm posting from now is getting
replaced with a newer model tomorrow.

Apparantly for the sake of a lighter power bill, rather than for
more RAM.

The laptop that I'm using is even older, but I'm running Linux
kernel 2.4 on it most of the time anyway.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

Am 21.08.2023 um 17:46:03 Uhr schrieb Computer Nerd Kev:

> Marco Moock <mo01@posteo.de> wrote:
> > 512 MB is ok for booting up current Linux, 20 year old computers
> > have that amount of RAM or can be upgraded.
>
> I just read an announcement that the computer from 2003 that's
> running the news server that I'm posting from now is getting
> replaced with a newer model tomorrow.
>
> Apparantly for the sake of a lighter power bill, rather than for
> more RAM.
>
> The laptop that I'm using is even older, but I'm running Linux
> kernel 2.4 on it most of the time anyway.

I also sometimes run 20 year old machines, but I know the limitations.

It would be possible to reduce the overhead by compiling without
unneeded options, only running what is really needed etc., but all of
that is far away from everyday usage.

On 21/08/2023 07:26, Marco Moock wrote:
> Am 21.08.2023 um 00:56:30 Uhr schrieb 51b.1055:
>
>> Today, about the smallest Linux images use up 25-100
>> MEGAbytes for just a basic CL terminal. You'd need
>> about 15 of those old floppies just to boot 'em.
>>
>> Do they do 15-25 times more stuff ?
>
> The kernel does support much, much more things, including hardware
> support for new and old devices.
>
> Almost nobody cares about 200 MB for a kernel today, as almost nobody
> uses such ancient hardware for modern operating systems.
>
> I remember that some people use 586 with current kernel to test drivers
> for ISA/VLB cards, but that is the exception rather than the rule.
> 512 MB is ok for booting up current Linux, 20 year old computers have
> that amount of RAM or can be upgraded.
>
Actually the amount of MEMORY footprint a basic terminal style networked
Linux occupies is less than 60MB. The rest of the distro is 'stuff you
might want to use, but probably never will',

My Pi zero W project is wallowing in a surfeit of its 512MB RAM.

# free -m
total used free shared buff/cache
available
Mem: 429 62 147 38 218
275
Swap: 99 0 99

My server which has an X windows desktop running a clock application -
something MSDOS never could have done...

#free -m
total used free shared buff/cache
available
Mem: 3868 671 241 3 2956
2912
Swap: 5720 715 5005

And once I throw Firefox on top of that you can kiss goodbye to at least
3 GB of RAM.

In short, its not Linux that is bloated, it is the graphical
applications and the X windows shite.

--
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit
atrocities.”

― Voltaire, Questions sur les Miracles à M. Claparede, Professeur de
Théologie à Genève, par un Proposant: Ou Extrait de Diverses Lettres de
M. de Voltaire

On 21/08/2023 08:46, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> Marco Moock <mo01@posteo.de> wrote:
>> 512 MB is ok for booting up current Linux, 20 year old computers have
>> that amount of RAM or can be upgraded.
>
> I just read an announcement that the computer from 2003 that's
> running the news server that I'm posting from now is getting
> replaced with a newer model tomorrow.
>
> Apparantly for the sake of a lighter power bill, rather than for
> more RAM.
>
At today's electricity prices, it does make sense to downgrade servers
power wise if you can keep the same performance.

> The laptop that I'm using is even older, but I'm running Linux
> kernel 2.4 on it most of the time anyway.
>

--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

On 21/08/2023 09:07, Marco Moock wrote:
> Am 21.08.2023 um 17:46:03 Uhr schrieb Computer Nerd Kev:
>
>> Marco Moock <mo01@posteo.de> wrote:
>>> 512 MB is ok for booting up current Linux, 20 year old computers
>>> have that amount of RAM or can be upgraded.
>>
>> I just read an announcement that the computer from 2003 that's
>> running the news server that I'm posting from now is getting
>> replaced with a newer model tomorrow.
>>
>> Apparantly for the sake of a lighter power bill, rather than for
>> more RAM.
>>
>> The laptop that I'm using is even older, but I'm running Linux
>> kernel 2.4 on it most of the time anyway.
>
> I also sometimes run 20 year old machines, but I know the limitations.
>
> It would be possible to reduce the overhead by compiling without
> unneeded options, only running what is really needed etc., but all of
> that is far away from everyday usage.
>
If all you want to do is write PERL, I am sure that a 386 with 2MB RAM
running SCO Unix or Venix would suit you just fine.

--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

On 21/08/2023 08:32, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> Surprisingly some hardware manufacturers still publish MS-DOS
> drivers.
MSDOS is still used in many industrial computers which run customs or
specialised hardware, because the PC/AT back in the day was a fantastic
platform to design interfaces for, and if you don't need multitasking,
and extremely simple one to program for as well.

--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

On 2023-08-21 07:12, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 21/08/2023 08:32, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>> Surprisingly some hardware manufacturers still publish MS-DOS
>> drivers.
> MSDOS is still used in many industrial computers which run customs or
> specialised hardware, because the PC/AT back in the day was a fantastic
> platform to design interfaces for, and if you don't need multitasking,
> and extremely simple one to program for as well.

Do they use actual MsDOS, or things like FreeDos?

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

On 2023-08-21 02:26, Marco Moock wrote:
> Am 21.08.2023 um 00:56:30 Uhr schrieb 51b.1055:
>
>> Today, about the smallest Linux images use up 25-100
>> MEGAbytes for just a basic CL terminal. You'd need
>> about 15 of those old floppies just to boot 'em.
>>
>> Do they do 15-25 times more stuff ?
>
> The kernel does support much, much more things, including hardware
> support for new and old devices.

And everything is there in the kernel, instead of drivers to load
separately from config.sys or autoexec.bat. Not everything is loaded,
but they are available in the disk, in the modules tree, to be loaded
automatically if the hardware is detected.

>
> Almost nobody cares about 200 MB for a kernel today, as almost nobody
> uses such ancient hardware for modern operating systems.
>
> I remember that some people use 586 with current kernel to test drivers
> for ISA/VLB cards, but that is the exception rather than the rule.
> 512 MB is ok for booting up current Linux, 20 year old computers have
> that amount of RAM or can be upgraded.

Yeah, and the support for those ancient devices is included in the same
kernel used for new hardware; everything adds size.

The possibility is there to build a small kernel configured for a single
machine.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

On 21/08/2023 12:33, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> On 2023-08-21 07:12, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>> On 21/08/2023 08:32, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>>> Surprisingly some hardware manufacturers still publish MS-DOS
>>> drivers.
>> MSDOS is still used in many industrial computers which run customs or
>> specialised hardware, because the PC/AT back in the day was a
>> fantastic platform to design interfaces for, and if you don't need
>> multitasking, and extremely simple one to program for as well.
>
> Do they use actual MsDOS, or things like FreeDos?
>
Probably these days FreeDOS.

Its only there to load whatever program they actually run.

--
Any fool can believe in principles - and most of them do!

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> And once I throw Firefox on top of that you can kiss goodbye to at least
> 3 GB of RAM.
>
> In short, its not Linux that is bloated, it is the graphical
> applications and the X windows shite.

You can still display and use Firefox windows fine in one of the
old "tiny" X11 servers that are only ~1MB in size and might only
take up a few MB RAM (which probably depends on lot on the
resolution and colour depth). In fact while digging around in old
X docs a while ago I saw mention of a commercial X server for
DOS in the 80s that advertised only requiring 640K of RAM (probably
not Firefox friendly though, I'd guess).

I'm kind-of in awe at how all that code (at least the old XFree86
era code) can compile to such modest binaries and run on an old
486. Unfortunately recently X.Org has been ignoring that aspect
and allowing the bloat to grow as a result. While again, like
Linux, the newer versions don't actually do much more except
support new hardware.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

On Mon, 21 Aug 2023 00:56:30 -0400, 51b.1055 wrote:
>
> tDOS could run off a 360 KB floppy in as little as 64kb
> of ram (a little more WAS desirable). There was a little
> space left over on the floppy. CP/M could do it in a
> little less. You can argue they're *almost* the same OS.

CP/M is from 1974, MS-DOS 1980, Linux 1991. A lot happened in between.
--
Andreas

On 2023-08-21 08:00, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 21/08/2023 12:33, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>> On 2023-08-21 07:12, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>> On 21/08/2023 08:32, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>>>> Surprisingly some hardware manufacturers still publish MS-DOS
>>>> drivers.
>>> MSDOS is still used in many industrial computers which run customs or
>>> specialised hardware, because the PC/AT back in the day was a
>>> fantastic platform to design interfaces for, and if you don't need
>>> multitasking, and extremely simple one to program for as well.
>>
>> Do they use actual MsDOS, or things like FreeDos?
>>
> Probably these days FreeDOS.
>
> Its only there to load whatever program they actually run.

I worked in that sector, and indeed MsDOS was perfect for it. Only thing
I missed was network. FreeDOS has it, I believe.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

On 8/21/23 3:46 AM, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> Marco Moock <mo01@posteo.de> wrote:
>> 512 MB is ok for booting up current Linux, 20 year old computers have
>> that amount of RAM or can be upgraded.
>
> I just read an announcement that the computer from 2003 that's
> running the news server that I'm posting from now is getting
> replaced with a newer model tomorrow.

A while ago, the passenger-checkin computer system
at Heathrow broke down. Apparently they discovered
that it was a Win-95 box from the old old days that had
been doing its thing since forever. Maybe they just rebooted ?
I think there was a similar incident in Paris. Probably more
such ancient boxes keeping the infrastructure going.

https://www.loosewireblog.com/2008/01/heathrows-old-w.html

https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a27928/22-years-later-windows-95/

You don't always need an i9+NVidia to do business :-)

> Apparantly for the sake of a lighter power bill, rather than for
> more RAM.

I think you can run usenet from a PI-3/4 if the
expected traffic isn't TOO high. If it is high,
well, try two PI's in a load-sharing arrangement.
Usenet is basically a simple text database.

> The laptop that I'm using is even older, but I'm running Linux
> kernel 2.4 on it most of the time anyway.

Some "old" kernels still get updates, some don't.
Found some docs on that lately, but don't remember
exactly where. Not sure about 2.4.x however.

Old kernels are "normally" just fine. It all depends
on the application. If it's security-sensitive like
a bank or defense contractor or nuke plant I'd suggest
staying fairly current. For a personal laptop or
whatever I won't freak because there's a 4.x.x kernel.

A "dist-upgrade" often brings in THE latest greatest
kernel for a given distro.

On 8/21/23 7:10 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 21/08/2023 09:07, Marco Moock wrote:
>> Am 21.08.2023 um 17:46:03 Uhr schrieb Computer Nerd Kev:
>>
>>> Marco Moock <mo01@posteo.de> wrote:
>>>> 512 MB is ok for booting up current Linux, 20 year old computers
>>>> have that amount of RAM or can be upgraded.
>>>
>>> I just read an announcement that the computer from 2003 that's
>>> running the news server that I'm posting from now is getting
>>> replaced with a newer model tomorrow.
>>>
>>> Apparantly for the sake of a lighter power bill, rather than for
>>> more RAM.
>>>
>>> The laptop that I'm using is even older, but I'm running Linux
>>> kernel 2.4 on it most of the time anyway.
>>
>> I also sometimes run 20 year old machines, but I know the limitations.
>>
>> It would be possible to reduce the overhead by compiling without
>> unneeded options, only running what is really needed etc., but all of
>> that is far away from everyday usage.
>>
> If all you want to do is write PERL, I am sure that a 386 with 2MB RAM
> running SCO Unix  or Venix would suit you just fine.

They DID run such stuff ... BASIC, PERL, early PYTHON not to
mention the compiled languages. Indeed a 386 was seem as a
sort of luxury PC back in the day ("Only needed for servers")
... 86/286 were good enough to run a number of operating
systems, including Xenix/SCO.

Which brings me back to the primary question ... if SCO could
run on an '86 with under 1mb and a couple of little floppies
why is MODERN -ix so gigantic ?

I suspect it's like closet space - the contents always
expands to encompass the entire available volume :-)

But ... could it still be MADE to fit in the olde-tyme
space/power ??? Could there be a distro that'd run and
do at least the essential stuff in 640kb RAM, 2x360kb
storage on an 8/16 chip ??? OS/9 was very unix-like and
could run on a 6809 RS-CoCo (and is still a commercial
product, still being developed).

https://www.microsys.de/en/products/software/os-9/

The answer DOES have import for the embedded and industrial
controller segment. The latter tends to use ladder logic
apps these days, but that isn't best for every need.

On 8/21/23 3:32 AM, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> 51b.1055 <51b.1055@qtq9.net> wrote:
>> tDOS could run off a 360 KB floppy in as little as 64kb
>> of ram (a little more WAS desirable). There was a little
>> space left over on the floppy. CP/M could do it in a
>> little less. You can argue they're *almost* the same OS.
>>
>> Now we're talking KILObytes here, not MEGAbytes or GIGAbytes.
>>
>> DOS and CP/M were indeed operating systems - they managed
>> the system and resources, kinda virtualized some I/O
>> devices, you could write proper programs and DO stuff
>> with them well beyond the microcontroller world.
>
> You did need to set up your own TSR drivers for sound, mouse,
> networking, etc. to use those extra hardware featres that come
> either built into Linux kernels or loaded from modules (assuming
> the hardware is supported).

The drivers WERE a pain in the ass, quite true. OTOH they
were usually very SMALL, didn't impact resources much, and
you only needed the drivers for what was explicitly on
your particular box. Once you had it right ....

> Surprisingly some hardware manufacturers still publish MS-DOS
> drivers.

And SHOULD !

DOS/Clones are NOT dead. They still do useful stuff.

>> Hey,
>> VisiCalc, Lotus-123, WordStar, Quattro, Novell/Lantastic
>> networking ... BIG game-changers all in under a megabyte
>> of RAM and off a little floppy disk (dual floppies were
>> desired however).
>
> Ahem:
> https://krzysztofjankowski.com/floppinux/

Interesting (though obscure). I'll look into it.

Though he IS using one of the later "high-capacity"
floppies ... CHEATER ! :-)

>> Oh, and there was also XENIX/SCO Unix that would run on
>> those tiny old boxes (though it wasn't cheap).
>>
>> Today, about the smallest Linux images use up 25-100
>> MEGAbytes for just a basic CL terminal. You'd need
>> about 15 of those old floppies just to boot 'em.
>
> Besides FLOPPINUX, also not with OpenWrt. My router running OpenWrt
> 22.03 has 4.3MB of storage used, including 45 installed packages on
> top of the bare minimum system (mostly kernel module packages
> because OpenWrt comes with very little built into the kernel). Drop
> a couple of packages and it would fit on three floppy disks.
>
>> Do they do 15-25 times more stuff ?
>
> It is true that the minimum requirements for something like OpenWrt
> keep getting bigger, while it doesn't do anything more. I'd be
> quite interested in an OpenWrt-like distro based on one of the CIP
> LTS Linux kernels. v6.1 is currently set to be supported until 2033.
> That would particularly suit an embedded application which only
> needs security updates, no extra bloat with new features that will
> never be used. But you have to compile everything yourself to use
> it because, so far as I know, no distro is based on the CIP kernels.
>
> https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/civilinfrastructureplatform/start
>
> Actually it looks like they are trying to do something along the
> lines of a minimal Debian-based dristro with the same support
> period:
>
> https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/civilinfrastructureplatform/cip-core

Another interesting project - though it seems to be just
"conceptual" at this point.

We're used to seeing Linux/Linux-like systems on pretty much
all kinds of "hardware" these days - WalMart routers, printers
and such. However it's often hard to tell what the real cpu/mem
requirements are. IOT generally requires wireless and thus a
lot more software and thus hardware, but there's still a sizable
segment that can do good work with low-cpu/mem/storage needs.
"MicroControllers" have kinda moved up into that area (many
are not so "micro" anymore) but there's still a gap where you
want an actual "OS"/multi-user/tasking, but don't need MUCH
of one.

Hey, here's a challenge ... run an identifiable Linux on one
of those Epson 4-bit chips ! :-)

On 8/21/23 8:57 PM, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Aug 2023 00:56:30 -0400, 51b.1055 wrote:
>>
>> tDOS could run off a 360 KB floppy in as little as 64kb
>> of ram (a little more WAS desirable). There was a little
>> space left over on the floppy. CP/M could do it in a
>> little less. You can argue they're *almost* the same OS.
>
> CP/M is from 1974, MS-DOS 1980, Linux 1991. A lot happened in between.

DOS was stolen - a rip-of of DR CP/M. Gates bought it
from the thief. Hmmm ... 'retro' lawsuits are all the
rage now and SOMEBODY inherited the rights to all that
DR stuff, so, how much money DID M$ make from DOS ??? :-)

Combining most of the PIP functions "live" on the CL
was a good idea though.

Linux was not stolen, it was an independently-coded
Unix "work-alike".

Anyway, my question was about the SIZE of modern -ix.
You COULD run SCO Unix on an 8088 with 1mb and a couple
of 360kb floppies. Did what you'd expect. So, what
went wrong ? Why is todays' code so huge, so un-optimal,
while doing basically the same core stuff ???

Does a Gb-sized -ix, esp CL, do THAT much more
vital stuff than the ones that ran on a PC-XT ???
We want MU/MT, a file system, a certain amount of
device abstraction, a couple good compilers. Guess
it's all what you have in mind, but sometimes that
vision is "simple", "compact", "low-resource".

I proposed the "closet model" to someone ... how the
space in a closet is soon ALL used. Bigger closet,
more junk, STILL 100% usage. Now we have 64-bits
and giga/terabytes so .....

On 22/08/2023 06:09, 51b.1055 wrote:
> Does a Gb-sized -ix, esp CL, do THAT much more
>   vital stuff than the ones that ran on a PC-XT ???
>   We want MU/MT, a file system, a certain amount of
>   device abstraction, a couple good compilers. Guess
>   it's all what you have in mind, but sometimes that
>   vision is "simple", "compact", "low-resource".

You cant have a thousand users all on MSDOS. You can on linux.
Linux is ground up multi-user multitasking.

Its a miniature mini computer operating system, and getting it on a
miniature card for less than $20 is still a bloody miracle.

If it takes 60MB RAM so what. We HAVE 60MB RAM.
MSDOS ran on one archgtecture only. Linux runs on many.

--
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will
eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such
time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic
and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally
important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for
the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the
truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

Joseph Goebbels

On 22/08/2023 02:52, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> On 2023-08-21 08:00, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>> On 21/08/2023 12:33, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>>> On 2023-08-21 07:12, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>> On 21/08/2023 08:32, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>>>>> Surprisingly some hardware manufacturers still publish MS-DOS
>>>>> drivers.
>>>> MSDOS is still used in many industrial computers which run customs
>>>> or specialised hardware, because the PC/AT back in the day was a
>>>> fantastic platform to design interfaces for, and if you don't need
>>>> multitasking, and extremely simple one to program for as well.
>>>
>>> Do they use actual MsDOS, or things like FreeDos?
>>>
>> Probably these days FreeDOS.
>>
>> Its only there to load whatever program they actually run.
>
> I worked in that sector, and indeed MsDOS was perfect for it. Only thing
> I missed was network. FreeDOS has it, I believe.
>
Novell netware and varous TCI/IP stacks were available.
--
“But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an
hypothesis!”

Mary Wollstonecraft

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
> On 22/08/2023 06:09, 51b.1055 wrote:
>> Does a Gb-sized -ix, esp CL, do THAT much more
>>   vital stuff than the ones that ran on a PC-XT ???
>>   We want MU/MT, a file system, a certain amount of
>>   device abstraction, a couple good compilers. Guess
>>   it's all what you have in mind, but sometimes that
>>   vision is "simple", "compact", "low-resource".
>
> You cant have a thousand users all on MSDOS. You can on linux.
> Linux is ground up multi-user multitasking.

I’m not sure how quantify ‘stuff’ in the OP’s post but I think the
answer to “Do they do 15-25 times more stuff” is a clear yes relative to
MSDOS considering even just kernel functionality.

e.g. support for multiple threads, processes, users, cgroups, namespaces
(of at least eight kinds). Virtualization. Dozens of network protocols
(with built-in packet filtering, NAT, etc) and filesystems. Hundreds of
device drivers of all kinds built in. Virtual memory. Multiple security
features (device encryption, RNG, multiple kinds of mandatory access
control, more).

The early x86 Unixes had some of the above but really only a fraction of
it.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

On 22/08/2023 08:35, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
>> On 22/08/2023 06:09, 51b.1055 wrote:
>>> Does a Gb-sized -ix, esp CL, do THAT much more
>>>   vital stuff than the ones that ran on a PC-XT ???
>>>   We want MU/MT, a file system, a certain amount of
>>>   device abstraction, a couple good compilers. Guess
>>>   it's all what you have in mind, but sometimes that
>>>   vision is "simple", "compact", "low-resource".
>>
>> You cant have a thousand users all on MSDOS. You can on linux.
>> Linux is ground up multi-user multitasking.
>
> I’m not sure how quantify ‘stuff’ in the OP’s post but I think the
> answer to “Do they do 15-25 times more stuff” is a clear yes relative to
> MSDOS considering even just kernel functionality.
>
> e.g. support for multiple threads, processes, users, cgroups, namespaces
> (of at least eight kinds). Virtualization. Dozens of network protocols
> (with built-in packet filtering, NAT, etc) and filesystems. Hundreds of
> device drivers of all kinds built in. Virtual memory. Multiple security
> features (device encryption, RNG, multiple kinds of mandatory access
> control, more).
>
> The early x86 Unixes had some of the above but really only a fraction of
> it.
>

Totally agree. I remember tuning up how many open sockets would be
allowed in SCO unix as well as the number of virtual TTYS.

I have an anecdote about MSDOS too - a guy I did a job for was enthusing
about how much faster an Apricot was than a nameless clone. I was
puzzled, and looked into its setup and increase the file buffers from 2
to 8, like the apricot. They then ran at the same speed. He never asked
me to work for him again.

Nobody likes a smart arse...

The point is if MSDOS is ALL YOU NEED,. then of course its way more
efficient than Linux. However its a total can of worms if you try and
put a multitasking add on in it.

Today, the equivalent to MSDOS is probably a bare metal boot loader for
an arduino..

--
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will
eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such
time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic
and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally
important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for
the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the
truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

Joseph Goebbels

On 2023-08-22 03:01, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 22/08/2023 02:52, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>> On 2023-08-21 08:00, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>> On 21/08/2023 12:33, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>>>> On 2023-08-21 07:12, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>>> On 21/08/2023 08:32, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>>>>>> Surprisingly some hardware manufacturers still publish MS-DOS
>>>>>> drivers.
>>>>> MSDOS is still used in many industrial computers which run customs
>>>>> or specialised hardware, because the PC/AT back in the day was a
>>>>> fantastic platform to design interfaces for, and if you don't need
>>>>> multitasking, and extremely simple one to program for as well.
>>>>
>>>> Do they use actual MsDOS, or things like FreeDos?
>>>>
>>> Probably these days FreeDOS.
>>>
>>> Its only there to load whatever program they actually run.
>>
>> I worked in that sector, and indeed MsDOS was perfect for it. Only
>> thing I missed was network. FreeDOS has it, I believe.
>>
> Novell netware and varous TCI/IP stacks were available.

I didn't know of them back in the day.

A friend of mine installed Win 95 (IIRC) with network support, then
configured it to boot in console mode, then installed their application.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

On 2023-08-21 23:52, 51b.1055 wrote:
> On 8/21/23 7:10 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>> On 21/08/2023 09:07, Marco Moock wrote:
>>> Am 21.08.2023 um 17:46:03 Uhr schrieb Computer Nerd Kev:
>>>
>>>> Marco Moock <mo01@posteo.de> wrote:
>>>>> 512 MB is ok for booting up current Linux, 20 year old computers
>>>>> have that amount of RAM or can be upgraded.
>>>>
>>>> I just read an announcement that the computer from 2003 that's
>>>> running the news server that I'm posting from now is getting
>>>> replaced with a newer model tomorrow.
>>>>
>>>> Apparantly for the sake of a lighter power bill, rather than for
>>>> more RAM.
>>>>
>>>> The laptop that I'm using is even older, but I'm running Linux
>>>> kernel 2.4 on it most of the time anyway.
>>>
>>> I also sometimes run 20 year old machines, but I know the limitations.
>>>
>>> It would be possible to reduce the overhead by compiling without
>>> unneeded options, only running what is really needed etc., but all of
>>> that is far away from everyday usage.
>>>
>> If all you want to do is write PERL, I am sure that a 386 with 2MB RAM
>> running SCO Unix  or Venix would suit you just fine.
>
>   They DID run such stuff ... BASIC, PERL, early PYTHON not to
>   mention the compiled languages. Indeed a 386 was seem as a
>   sort of luxury PC back in the day ("Only needed for servers")
>   ... 86/286 were good enough to run a number of operating
>   systems, including Xenix/SCO.
>
>   Which brings me back to the primary question ... if SCO could
>   run on an '86 with under 1mb and a couple of little floppies
>   why is MODERN -ix so gigantic ?

It actually does a lot more, and has millions of drivers.

Then, there is no need to optimize for tiny memory anymore, it would be
a waste of time.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.