New DOS shell for Windows coming

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YKhan wrote:

> Called the Monad shell, or MSH. It's supposed to be similar to BASH on
> Unix environments.

I can't help but read Gonad shell. (The shell real men use.)
 
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A Jones wrote:
> Who cares? The DOS batch language is one of the few programming languages
> in use that's actually worse than Bash. I'm sure MS will either maintain
> backwards compatibility or keep the DOS interpreter around. MS gets
> routinely assaulted for its supposed neglect of backwards compatibility,
> but all I can say is it's pretty hard to do worse than the fragmentation
> under Unix, with a half dozen or more shells, all incompatible, and
> all equally bad.

There hasn't been a Bourne Shell script that can't run in bash or ksh.
That's mainly because bash and ksh are descendents or upgrades of
bourne, of course. You can either write to the lowest common
denominator standard which is bourne, or write to one of its upgrades,
giving up on some portability for some extra features.

Yes, csh won't run bourne stuff very well, but it wasn't meant to, it's
a completely different language. Tcsh is csh's descendent.


> The problem with Unix users is that they're almost all advocates, so
> they're unable to view the technology critically. That's partly why
> Unix systems have fallen so far behind in technology over the past 15
> years or so, while competing systems continued to progress. I seem
> to be one of the few Unix users who is willing to speak honestly about
> the limitations and the great need for improvement.

Whatever.

Yousuf Khan
 
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A Jones <ajones@nospam.me.noway> wrote:
> Who cares? The DOS batch language is one of the few
> programming languages in use that's actually worse than Bash.

You don't seem to make any distinction between a
programming language and a scripting language.

> The problem with Unix users is that they're almost all advocates,
> so they're unable to view the technology critically. That's

That would apply to many MS-Windows and Apple users moreso.

> partly why Unix systems have fallen so far behind in technology
> over the past 15 years or so, while competing systems continued
> to progress. I seem to be one of the few Unix users who is
> willing to speak honestly about the limitations and the great
> need for improvement.

Progress is not a scalar, it is a vector. There are many
different desireable attributes and different products weigh
them differently. Even MS-Windows has a place.

I can see many improvements possible for Unix. `bash` in
particular seems to have overworked the scripting language and
underworked interactive usability features. 4DOS.EXE has some
nice features, as does `tcsh`.

> There's a tiny minority of people who fall in love with
> typical Unix technologies X Window, Emacs, and Bash, and
> are unable or unwilling to see how much need they have for

I love none of these, yet I like Unix and other Linux-like systems.

> need to do is to compare it, with its brief, imprecise, and

I have never heard anyone describe the bash manpage as "brief"!

> for languages like Java, C#, OCaml, Haskell, Scheme, ...,

`bash` also has the burden of backwards compatibility
and is a _scripting_ language. I would hate to use any
one of these programming languages interactively.

> Also, you might want to visit the scsh web site. Scsh is

I did. Sorry, but it uses too many parentheses for quick CLI work.

-- Robert
 
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Franc Zabkar wrote:

> Yeah, DIRectory makes a lot less sense that ls -l.

Can't we all just get along? :)

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 80972 Jul 25 2004 /bin/ls
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 80972 Jul 25 2004 /usr/bin/dir
 
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Robert Redelmeier wrote:

> > FYI, 4DOS has recently become freeware, so a powerful
> > replacement for command.com and cmd.exe is already available.
>
> Good. I always liked 4DOS. Tell me, is the source also
> available? I'd like to replace `bash`, although I'm sure
> it will need mods to do the filename expansion that the unix
> shells do, but MS-DOS passes to pgms.

I always liked 4DOS too, but I got into a few bad habits with it, like
using the file descriptions, which turned out not to be portable once I
moved from the DOS environment to the Windows one.

Yousuf Khan
 
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On Thu, 16 Jun 2005 14:35:09 +0000, Robert Redelmeier wrote:

> A Jones <ajones@nospam.me.noway> wrote:
>> Who cares? The DOS batch language is one of the few
>> programming languages in use that's actually worse than Bash.
>
> You don't seem to make any distinction between a
> programming language and a scripting language.

A scripting language is a kind of programming language.
Bash is reminiscent of BASIC. I think of it sort of as
BASIC's crazy uncle. It's got a weird and limited set
of data structures, weird and limited looping constructs,
a weird and limited notion of function, etc. BASIC itself
is pretty mediocre, but writing for its crazy uncle Bash
is pretty unpleasant.

The sad thing about Unix is that the technical incompetence
of its developers not only makes for lousy technology,
but also blinds its users to the need for improvement. They think
weird things, like a scripting language isn't a real programming
language, so you don't need to know anything about programming
languages to create it. They think they can write things like
that by the seat of their pants, knowing nothing about computer
science, or even being that good at programming. And they end up
congratulating themselves for the superb job they've done, because they
don't know enough to realize that they should be working within the
framework of 4 decades of programming language research. In that
tradition, the crazy uncle of one of the lousiest languages to
survive from the 1960's wouldn't count for much, but in the
Unix world, it's treated with reverence, like it's some
powerful and ingenious invention. So you've got these technically
incompetent folks, who know nothing about computer science,
who are even more clueless about usability and marketing,
calling each other gurus and congratulating themselves for
knowing more than the folks in Redmond.

And what you end up with, is the Unix people let BASIC's crazy uncle
out of the attic, and made him run a big part of the Unix
show. And the other parts of the show are run by the other
loony systems, like X Window and Emacs, which are designed
with equal technical incompetence.
 
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On Thu, 16 Jun 2005 15:18:08 +0200, Grumble <devnull@kma.eu.org> put
finger to keyboard and composed:

>Franc Zabkar wrote:
>
>> Yeah, DIRectory makes a lot less sense that ls -l.
>
>Can't we all just get along? :)
>
>-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 80972 Jul 25 2004 /bin/ls
>-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 80972 Jul 25 2004 /usr/bin/dir

To some extent you can define your own macros using DOSKEY:

doskey ls=dir

Actually I intend to migrate to Linux when Win98se no longer cuts it.
I'm also a big user of the command line and I welcome any move to make
it more powerful and user friendly. In the past I've used several
minicomputer OSes, all with intuitive English CLIs. I've also used
Coherent, but it involved a *lot* of learning, more than I was
prepared to put in at the time. Unix (and its variants) has always
struck me as a cliquey, non-intuitive, boffin's language. I believe
that computing should be an extension of one's normal thought
processes. (That's why I've always avoided calculators that used RPN,
such as those made by HP, preferring calculators that supported
standard algebraic notation.)

Anyway, whether or not you like Bill, at least he has made computing
accessible. Any platform that perpetuates the old elitist us-and-them
relationship should die, IMHO.

FYI, 4DOS has recently become freeware, so a powerful replacement for
command.com and cmd.exe is already available.


- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 's' from my address when replying by email.
 
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Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@optussnet.com.au> wrote:
> To some extent you can define your own macros using DOSKEY:

Or the `bash` builtin `alias`. Even my retro Slackware comes
configured with `dir` as an alias to `ls`
  • , and `ls` itself
    to `/usr/bin/ls $LS_OPTIONS` so you can fix whatever options
    you want in the env.

    > prepared to put in at the time. Unix (and its variants) has always
    > struck me as a cliquey, non-intuitive, boffin's language.

    It is until you know why things evolved the way they did.
    Hint: it was designed for paper teletypes at 110 baud.

    > that computing should be an extension of one's normal thought
    > processes. (That's why I've always avoided calculators that
    > used RPN, such as those made by HP, preferring calculators
    > that supported standard algebraic notation.)

    Is this flamebait? I always prefered HP RPN calculators for
    _precisely_ the same reason. I find multiple nested brackets
    a necessary linear convention, but otherwise unintuitive.
    I understand equations in terms of what must be grouped
    together, often because of units.

    > Anyway, whether or not you like Bill, at least he has made
    > computing accessible. Any platform that perpetuates the
    > old elitist us-and-them relationship should die, IMHO.

    Entirely true. His bloatware has driven hardware ever
    bigger and faster.

    > FYI, 4DOS has recently become freeware, so a powerful
    > replacement for command.com and cmd.exe is already available.

    Good. I always liked 4DOS. Tell me, is the source also
    available? I'd like to replace `bash`, although I'm sure
    it will need mods to do the filename expansion that the unix
    shells do, but MS-DOS passes to pgms.

    -- Robert
 
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On Sat, 18 Jun 2005 08:28:02 +1000, Franc Zabkar
<fzabkar@optussnet.com.au> wrote:

>On Thu, 16 Jun 2005 15:18:08 +0200, Grumble <devnull@kma.eu.org> put
>finger to keyboard and composed:
>
>>Franc Zabkar wrote:
>>
>>> Yeah, DIRectory makes a lot less sense that ls -l.
>>
>>Can't we all just get along? :)
>>
>>-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 80972 Jul 25 2004 /bin/ls
>>-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 80972 Jul 25 2004 /usr/bin/dir
>
>To some extent you can define your own macros using DOSKEY:
>
> doskey ls=dir

Wow.. talk about a blast from the past.. I haven't used Doskey in
ages! Just tested it though, still works in WinXP SP2 though!

>Actually I intend to migrate to Linux when Win98se no longer cuts it.

Uhh.. did Win98se *EVER* cut it? :>

>I'm also a big user of the command line and I welcome any move to make
>it more powerful and user friendly. In the past I've used several
>minicomputer OSes, all with intuitive English CLIs. I've also used
>Coherent, but it involved a *lot* of learning, more than I was
>prepared to put in at the time. Unix (and its variants) has always
>struck me as a cliquey, non-intuitive, boffin's language. I believe
>that computing should be an extension of one's normal thought
>processes. (That's why I've always avoided calculators that used RPN,
>such as those made by HP, preferring calculators that supported
>standard algebraic notation.)

I've used a number of command lines over the years and never found any
of them to be intuitive. Usable and sometimes very useful, yes, but
definitely not very intuitive.

>Anyway, whether or not you like Bill, at least he has made computing
>accessible. Any platform that perpetuates the old elitist us-and-them
>relationship should die, IMHO.
>
>FYI, 4DOS has recently become freeware, so a powerful replacement for
>command.com and cmd.exe is already available.

Now that's even more of a blast from the past! I haven't used 4Dos in
at least 10 years!

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca
 
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On Sat, 18 Jun 2005 00:43:30 +0000, Robert Redelmeier wrote:

>> Anyway, whether or not you like Bill, at least he has made
>> computing accessible. Any platform that perpetuates the
>> old elitist us-and-them relationship should die, IMHO.
>
> Entirely true. His bloatware has driven hardware ever
> bigger and faster.

If Gates did anything, he made software a business, and
a profitable one at that. He did not focus first on making
anything accessible. Remember, Microsoft didn't even have
a decent GUI for any of its operating systems until late
1995. It was the last of the non-Unix vendors to get decent
GUI technology. Of course, Linux/Unix is still struggling
to catch up to what MS had in 1995 and everyone else had
even earlier.

As far as producing bloatware that has driven hardware ever
bigger and faster, I don't really see that. Where do you
think hardware would be now if it weren't for Microsoft?
Where should it be? Should we still be running 386's with
1 MB or RAM?

I think hardware and software have evolved together. As
hardware has improved, software developers have been able
to change their paradigms by writing less efficient but
more powerful and more easily maintainable code. That's
basically a good thing. Software written without high
level abstractions is nasty stuff.

I think Microsoft has been pretty on target in terms of writing
software to the hardware that would be current at ship time.
A lot of other companies have been much less successful. One
of the reasons OS/2 faltered is that IBM was releasing versions
that needed 16MB of RAM at a time when 2 or 4 MB was the norm.
Windows 3.1 was pretty happy with 2 or 4 MB or RAM, and Windows
95 could get by with 8MB. NeXT was even worse. And the OpenDoc
component system was another case. It needed 32 MB or more
at a time when 8 and 16 MB was the norm, and OLE (or whatever
MS was calling it at the time) required far less. (Well, they
never quite got OpenDoc working right either). Too bad. It's
been 10 or 15 years now that Microsoft has been the only
significant company with working desktop component technology.

Some companies went the other direction, spending too much
time writing low level code. That might have been part of
the Amiga's problem.

As far as the current situation goes, I think it's pretty
clear that current Linux distributions are by far the most
inefficient and resource hungry systems ever created. The system
I'm on now (Linux Fedora Core 2) just doesn't run well with
less than 512 MB of RAM, and it needs at least 768 if I
want to avoid excessive swapping when I have a lot of Firefox
tabs and other stuff going at once. That's a far cry from
the 8 or 16 MB Win 95 used to need, and it's 3 or 4 times
what my Win2000 and Win XP systems need.
 
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A Jones <ajones@nospam.me.noway> wrote:
> A scripting language is a kind of programming language.

Yes, but it has _very_ different design objectives from
traditional [compiled] programming languages. Fundamentally
designed for easy automation of command sequences by the typers
(not traditional programmers). No large memory structures.
It is meant for very short programs. A long script is as
much a misuse as "Hello, World" is in `c`.

> Bash is reminiscent of BASIC. I think of it sort of as BASIC's
> crazy uncle. It's got a weird and limited set of data structures,

Wierd to you. Not necessarily to everyone. I think of BASIC much
the same as I think of MS-Windows. Seductively easy to learn,
but very limited (or contortions required) and not really to be
used beyond an introductory course or for very limited needs.

You are not the only person to dislike the Bourne shell. Many
people did, and starting very early on. `csh` was developed and
is the "primary" shell of *BSD systems. Others went in direction
of the Korn shell. Nothing stops you from working in the Scheme
shell if your work is original and valuable enough.

> The sad thing about Unix is that the technical incompetence
> of its developers not only makes for lousy technology, but

Flamebait. Please moderate your language if you wish me to respond.

-- Robert
 
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A Jones <ajones@nospam.me.noway> wrote:
> He did not focus first on making anything accessible.

Of course not. But he wanted ever-more sales, and the
Invisible Hand forced him in the direction of accessibility.

> Where do you think hardware would be now if it weren't
> for Microsoft? Where should it be? Should we still be
> running 386's with 1 MB or RAM?

An interesting speculation. How many PCs would be sold at
$5000 today. If attractiveness (eye candy) and mass marketting
hadn't driven the price down to one-tenth? Perhaps only one
tenth. That would then have justified far less development.

> One of the reasons OS/2 faltered is that IBM was releasing versions
> that needed 16MB of RAM at a time when 2 or 4 MB was the norm.

News to me. I thought the main reason OS/2 faltered was
Billy got in a huff and left with the UI with him. He
split the project, and took the market.

> Windows 3.1 was pretty happy with 2 or 4 MB or RAM,

Maybe 4 without many apps open. Not 2.

> and Windows 95 could get by with 8MB.

Very badly. It was designed for 16, and ran much better in 32+.

> As far as the current situation goes, I think it's pretty
> clear that current Linux distributions are by far the
> most inefficient and resource hungry systems ever created.
> The system I'm on now (Linux Fedora Core 2) just doesn't run
> well with less than 512 MB of RAM, and it needs at least 768
> if I want to avoid excessive swapping when I have a lot of
> Firefox tabs and other stuff going at once. That's a far
> cry from the 8 or 16 MB Win 95 used to need, and it's 3 or
> 4 times what my Win2000 and Win XP systems need.

I don't know what your problem is. I run Slackware fine on
an old 486sx laptop with 8 MB (no GUI). My main machine
has an excessive 512 MB, I run it swapless and I still get:

$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 515376 480772 34604 0 28904 199236
-/+ buffers/cache: 252632 262744
Swap: 0 0 0

with Mozilla, Citrix & bash running under KDE. It ran fine
swapless with 256 MB, and I'd expect it to run OK at 128 or
maybe 64 MB with swap.

-- Robert
 
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On Sat, 18 Jun 2005 15:26:20 +0000, Robert Redelmeier wrote:

> A Jones <ajones@nospam.me.noway> wrote:
>> One of the reasons OS/2 faltered is that IBM was releasing versions
>> that needed 16MB of RAM at a time when 2 or 4 MB was the norm.
>
> News to me. I thought the main reason OS/2 faltered was
> Billy got in a huff and left with the UI with him. He
> split the project, and took the market.

The story of OS/2 is a long one. IBM and MS were working on it
together, but MS was responsible for "advanced kernel development,"
so they were doing all the kernel stuff. IBM was doing the GUI.

What happened is that MS continued working on the DOS/Windows line
more or less behind IBM's back. Then, when Windows 3.1 hit the scene,
it was an unexpected smashing commercial success. The technology
was terrible, much worse than OS/2. The success was because it could run
in, let's say, 4 MB RAM, and it could run a lot of DOS software without
too much fuss. Bill didn't get in a huff, he just realized he was
holding all the cards. He decided to take the Windows 3.1 market, which
was in his hands, and shepherd it to Windows 95 and Windows NT, and dump
IBM.

OS/2 had a very nice GUI. It was a little drab in appearance, but
functionally it was powerful and slick. I would say the OS/2
GUI was more advanced 10 or 12 years ago than Gnome is today,
and OS/2 could run happily in 16 MB RAM rather than 512 or whatever
you think Gnome needs.

>> Windows 3.1 was pretty happy with 2 or 4 MB or RAM,
>
> Maybe 4 without many apps open. Not 2.
>
>> and Windows 95 could get by with 8MB.
>
> Very badly. It was designed for 16, and ran much better in 32+.
>
>> As far as the current situation goes, I think it's pretty
>> clear that current Linux distributions are by far the
>> most inefficient and resource hungry systems ever created.
>> The system I'm on now (Linux Fedora Core 2) just doesn't run
>> well with less than 512 MB of RAM, and it needs at least 768
>> if I want to avoid excessive swapping when I have a lot of
>> Firefox tabs and other stuff going at once. That's a far
>> cry from the 8 or 16 MB Win 95 used to need, and it's 3 or
>> 4 times what my Win2000 and Win XP systems need.
>
> I don't know what your problem is. I run Slackware fine on
> an old 486sx laptop with 8 MB (no GUI). My main machine
> has an excessive 512 MB, I run it swapless and I still get:
>
> $ free
> total used free shared buffers cached
> Mem: 515376 480772 34604 0 28904 199236
> -/+ buffers/cache: 252632 262744
> Swap: 0 0 0
>
> with Mozilla, Citrix & bash running under KDE. It ran fine
> swapless with 256 MB, and I'd expect it to run OK at 128 or
> maybe 64 MB with swap.

I generally have Gnome, Firefox, Thunderbird (or Evolution), XEmacs,
some terminals, and maybe a newsreader open. With 512MB, I could squeak
by most of the time, but too many Firefox tabs, or opening a pdf viewer,
or something, and bang, I was swapping like crazy. In my
experience, Windows 2000 and XP take a lot less memory for a similar
setup. In fact, I can get by with Windows 2000 running on 128 MB of
RAM. There's no way on earth I could ever get a RH system with Gnome
to run decently in that, or even 168 MB RAM -- not even close. Nor
will I ever waste the hours and hours of my life fiddling around trying
to get it to. If you've had better success, good. Enjoy.
 
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A Jones <ajones@nospam.me.noway> wrote:
> As far as the current situation goes, I think it's pretty
> clear that current Linux distributions are by far the most
> inefficient and resource hungry systems ever created. The system
> I'm on now (Linux Fedora Core 2) just doesn't run well with
> less than 512 MB of RAM, and it needs at least 768 if I
> want to avoid excessive swapping when I have a lot of Firefox
> tabs and other stuff going at once.

You could try a more efficient distribution - or, if you use KDE on Fedora,
even try switching to Gnome... or a lightweight Window manager, for that
matter.

KDE on Gentoo seems to run OK on 384 and well on 512 (w/ a P4-1.7ghz machine).
Gnome on Gentoo seems to run OK on 256 and well on 384 (ditto).
blackbox on Gentoo seems to run OK on 128 and well on 256 (ditto).

blackbox on Gentoo (using kdrive as a X server rather than XOrg) with a 2.4
kernel runs OK (on a 96mb Pentium MMX 233 system, no less!)

--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/

"This is not a humorous signature."
 
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On Sat, 18 Jun 2005 00:43:30 GMT, Robert Redelmeier
<redelm@ev1.net.invalid> put finger to keyboard and composed:

>Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@optussnet.com.au> wrote:
>> To some extent you can define your own macros using DOSKEY:
>
>Or the `bash` builtin `alias`. Even my retro Slackware comes
>configured with `dir` as an alias to `ls`
  • , and `ls` itself
    >to `/usr/bin/ls $LS_OPTIONS` so you can fix whatever options
    >you want in the env.
    >
    >> prepared to put in at the time. Unix (and its variants) has always
    >> struck me as a cliquey, non-intuitive, boffin's language.
    >
    >It is until you know why things evolved the way they did.
    >Hint: it was designed for paper teletypes at 110 baud.

    >> that computing should be an extension of one's normal thought
    >> processes. (That's why I've always avoided calculators that
    >> used RPN, such as those made by HP, preferring calculators
    >> that supported standard algebraic notation.)
    >
    >Is this flamebait? I always prefered HP RPN calculators for
    >_precisely_ the same reason. I find multiple nested brackets
    >a necessary linear convention, but otherwise unintuitive.
    >I understand equations in terms of what must be grouped
    >together, often because of units.

    IIRC TI calculators used a 9-level stack, albeit a hidden one. In fact
    one could access the stack on a TI-59 using undocumented instructions.
    So it's clear that TI machines *evaluated* the expressions in the same
    way as HP calculators, it's just that TI calculators *accepted*
    expressions as they were written. No mental gymnastics were required.
    I certainly didn't have to learn a new way of doing things.
    Furthermore, the often touted claim that HP calculators were much more
    economical with keystrokes was a myth which I disproved many a time.

    >> Anyway, whether or not you like Bill, at least he has made
    >> computing accessible. Any platform that perpetuates the
    >> old elitist us-and-them relationship should die, IMHO.
    >
    >Entirely true. His bloatware has driven hardware ever
    >bigger and faster.
    >
    >> FYI, 4DOS has recently become freeware, so a powerful
    >> replacement for command.com and cmd.exe is already available.
    >
    >Good. I always liked 4DOS. Tell me, is the source also
    >available?

    Not AFAIK, although this page suggests that it may go open source
    someday:
    http://www.4dos.info/v4dos.htm

    The actual v7.50 binaries are here:
    http://www.4dos.info/4dvers/4dos750b130.exe

    .... or here:
    ftp://jpsoft.com/4dos/files/

    > I'd like to replace `bash`, although I'm sure
    >it will need mods to do the filename expansion that the unix
    >shells do, but MS-DOS passes to pgms.
    >
    >-- Robert


    - Franc Zabkar
    --
    Please remove one 's' from my address when replying by email.
 
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On Sat, 18 Jun 2005 00:43:30 GMT, Robert Redelmeier
<redelm@ev1.net.invalid> put finger to keyboard and composed:

>Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@optussnet.com.au> wrote:

>> ... computing should be an extension of one's normal thought
>> processes. (That's why I've always avoided calculators that
>> used RPN, such as those made by HP, preferring calculators
>> that supported standard algebraic notation.)
>
>Is this flamebait? I always prefered HP RPN calculators for
>_precisely_ the same reason. I find multiple nested brackets
>a necessary linear convention, but otherwise unintuitive.
>I understand equations in terms of what must be grouped
>together, often because of units.

IIRC TI calculators used a 9-level stack, albeit a hidden one. In fact
one could access the stack on a TI-59 using undocumented instructions.
So it's clear that TI machines *evaluated* the expressions in the same
way as HP calculators, it's just that TI calculators *accepted*
expressions as they were written. No mental gymnastics were required.
Furthermore, the often touted claim that HP calculators were much more
economical with keystrokes was a myth which I disproved many a time.

In any case, whether or not RPN is better than algebraic is
irrelevant. My contention is that a person should not have to adapt to
technology, but that technology should adapt to him. For example, I
should be able to pick up any unfamiliar calculator and key in "1+2=",
not the counterintuitive "1 Enter 2 +". The inner workings should be
transparent to the user interface.

>> Anyway, whether or not you like Bill, at least he has made
>> computing accessible. Any platform that perpetuates the
>> old elitist us-and-them relationship should die, IMHO.
>
>Entirely true. His bloatware has driven hardware ever
>bigger and faster.
>
>> FYI, 4DOS has recently become freeware, so a powerful
>> replacement for command.com and cmd.exe is already available.
>
>Good. I always liked 4DOS. Tell me, is the source also
>available?

Not AFAIK, although this page suggests that it may go open source
someday:
http://www.4dos.info/v4dos.htm

The actual v7.50 binaries are here:
http://www.4dos.info/4dvers/4dos750b130.exe

.... or here:
ftp://jpsoft.com/4dos/files/

>I'd like to replace `bash`, although I'm sure
>it will need mods to do the filename expansion that the unix
>shells do, but MS-DOS passes to pgms.
>
>-- Robert


- Franc Zabkar
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On Sat, 18 Jun 2005 02:42:41 -0400, Tony Hill
<hilla_nospam_20@yahoo.ca> put finger to keyboard and composed:

>On Sat, 18 Jun 2005 08:28:02 +1000, Franc Zabkar
><fzabkar@optussnet.com.au> wrote:

>>Actually I intend to migrate to Linux when Win98se no longer cuts it.
>
>Uhh.. did Win98se *EVER* cut it? :>

Give me a break. It took me ages to move on from Win95B. :)

>>I'm also a big user of the command line and I welcome any move to make
>>it more powerful and user friendly. In the past I've used several
>>minicomputer OSes, all with intuitive English CLIs.
>
>I've used a number of command lines over the years and never found any
>of them to be intuitive. Usable and sometimes very useful, yes, but
>definitely not very intuitive.

Some that come to mind include DOS, CPM, PRIMOS, KRONOS, RSX-11M,
CGOS. I found all of them relatively easy to learn. In fact Primos is
so intuitive that I was able to connect a Prime mini (an unfamiliar
machine) to a DG mini and perform file transfers merely by referring
to Prime's online help. And I did this within a couple of hours, using
only edit and copy commands, via an RS232 interface.


- Franc Zabkar
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Well said, bro!

"A Jones" <ajones@nospam.me.noway> wrote in message
news:pan.2005.06.18.10.28.53.207894@nospam.me.noway...
> On Thu, 16 Jun 2005 14:35:09 +0000, Robert Redelmeier wrote:
>
>> A Jones <ajones@nospam.me.noway> wrote:
>>> Who cares? The DOS batch language is one of the few
>>> programming languages in use that's actually worse than Bash.
>>
>> You don't seem to make any distinction between a
>> programming language and a scripting language.
>
> A scripting language is a kind of programming language.
> Bash is reminiscent of BASIC. I think of it sort of as
> BASIC's crazy uncle. It's got a weird and limited set
> of data structures, weird and limited looping constructs,
> a weird and limited notion of function, etc. BASIC itself
> is pretty mediocre, but writing for its crazy uncle Bash
> is pretty unpleasant.
>
> The sad thing about Unix is that the technical incompetence
> of its developers not only makes for lousy technology,
> but also blinds its users to the need for improvement. They think
> weird things, like a scripting language isn't a real programming
> language, so you don't need to know anything about programming
> languages to create it. They think they can write things like
> that by the seat of their pants, knowing nothing about computer
> science, or even being that good at programming. And they end up
> congratulating themselves for the superb job they've done, because they
> don't know enough to realize that they should be working within the
> framework of 4 decades of programming language research. In that
> tradition, the crazy uncle of one of the lousiest languages to
> survive from the 1960's wouldn't count for much, but in the
> Unix world, it's treated with reverence, like it's some
> powerful and ingenious invention. So you've got these technically
> incompetent folks, who know nothing about computer science,
> who are even more clueless about usability and marketing,
> calling each other gurus and congratulating themselves for
> knowing more than the folks in Redmond.
>
> And what you end up with, is the Unix people let BASIC's crazy uncle
> out of the attic, and made him run a big part of the Unix
> show. And the other parts of the show are run by the other
> loony systems, like X Window and Emacs, which are designed
> with equal technical incompetence.
>
>
 
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One of design objectives of Windows 95 Gold was running in 4 MB. Of course,
it's not quire happy with it. But I've run it with 8 MB and it was not bad
at all. 8 MB Compaq-branded DIMM then costed 300.
When (around 1990?) I was told that I need 8 MB to run NT 3, I thought:
that's a big system!

I've seen Windows 2000 booting with 32 MB. Like watching paint dry.

"Robert Redelmeier" <redelm@ev1.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:w2Xse.2199$Nz2.1987@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com...
>> Windows 3.1 was pretty happy with 2 or 4 MB or RAM,
>
> Maybe 4 without many apps open. Not 2.
>
>> and Windows 95 could get by with 8MB.
>
> Very badly. It was designed for 16, and ran much better in 32+.
>
 
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On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 21:03:49 GMT, "Alexander Grigoriev"
<alegr@earthlink.net> wrote:

>One of design objectives of Windows 95 Gold was running in 4 MB. Of course,
>it's not quire happy with it. But I've run it with 8 MB and it was not bad
>at all. 8 MB Compaq-branded DIMM then costed 300.
>When (around 1990?) I was told that I need 8 MB to run NT 3, I thought:
>that's a big system!
>
>I've seen Windows 2000 booting with 32 MB. Like watching paint dry.

Ugg, I couldn't imagine trying to use Win2K with only 32MB of memory.
A while back at a summer job I had a computer that ran Win2K with 64MB
of memory and that was painful enough! I got a fair bit of swapping
by just booting the OS, let alone running any applications.

Of course, I was still WAY happier with this solution vs. the other
option of using Win98. I'd much rather due things slowly once than
having to do them quicker but re-doing my work all the time due to
Win98 crashes. I know some people claim that they can run Win98 for
weeks on end without it crashing, but for me it would crash nearly
every day (often multiple times in a day) on *EVERY* PC I've ever used
it on.


As for Linux, I've run it in a variety of configurations with a wide
range of memory sizes. One of the real nice points of Linux is how
flexible it is, on one system I could run a really trimmed down
version and it'll work just fine on 16MB (might even be able to
squeeze into 8MB). On my main system I've got 512MB so I load it up
with all the features, full KDE GUI, etc.


Honestly though,I don't think there's any point in talking about
"bloatware" these days. 1GB of memory costs only $100 and that's
plenty of memory for 99% of users out there today. Hardware has
pushed ahead much faster than software. If you ask me, I'll take the
bloat any day if it results in better features. New hardware is
dirt-cheap, if the problem requires another 512MB of memory, I'll
gladly spend the extra $50 to get that 512MB of memory when the
alternative is less functionality from the software. Now obviously
bloat without adding functionality isn't going to help anything, but
so long as the software is improving, I'm all for it.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca
 
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On Mon, 20 Jun 2005 01:09:55 -0400, Tony Hill
<hilla_nospam_20@yahoo.ca> put finger to keyboard and composed:

>On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 09:04:02 +1000, Franc Zabkar
><fzabkar@optussnet.com.au> wrote:
>
>>>I've used a number of command lines over the years and never found any
>>>of them to be intuitive. Usable and sometimes very useful, yes, but
>>>definitely not very intuitive.
>>
>>Some that come to mind include DOS, CPM, PRIMOS, KRONOS, RSX-11M,
>>CGOS. I found all of them relatively easy to learn. In fact Primos is
>>so intuitive that I was able to connect a Prime mini (an unfamiliar
>>machine) to a DG mini and perform file transfers merely by referring
>>to Prime's online help. And I did this within a couple of hours, using
>>only edit and copy commands, via an RS232 interface.
>
>The fact that it took you a couple of hours and required using the
>on-line help means that this interface was definitely not intuitive.
>Easy to learn, maybe, but definitely not intuitive.

I'm including the time taken to familiarise myself with totally
foreign hardware, and the time taken to make up a cable. The actual
commands I used were PRINT on the source machine and EDIT on the
target machine. I needed to consult the online help to find out how to
place the target machine's text editor into insert mode. IIRC, the
subcommand was "I" which *is* intuitive.


- Franc Zabkar
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Alexander Grigoriev <alegr@earthlink.net> wrote:
> When (around 1990?) I was told that I need 8 MB to run NT 3, I thought:
> that's a big system!

It came out in 1993, sometime around the end of the summer or the fall.

NT 3.1 (which was the first released) raised the requirement shortly before
the release date from 8mb to 16mb. I got 16mb of non-brand ram for about
$500

Then it turned out that it didn't support Plus hardcards, and I had to get a
new hard drive and controller to run it.

> I've seen Windows 2000 booting with 32 MB. Like watching paint dry.

It's not much better on 64. The real running footprint of just the OS is
about 80MB, so 96MB is the practical minimum to do *anything*.

--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/

"This is not a humorous signature."
 
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Franc Zabkar wrote:

>Robert Redelmeier wrote:
>>
>>Is this flamebait? I always prefered HP RPN calculators for
>>_precisely_ the same reason. I find multiple nested brackets
>>a necessary linear convention, but otherwise unintuitive.
>>I understand equations in terms of what must be grouped
>>together, often because of units.
>
>IIRC TI calculators used a 9-level stack, albeit a hidden one. In fact
>one could access the stack on a TI-59 using undocumented instructions.
>So it's clear that TI machines *evaluated* the expressions in the same
>way as HP calculators, it's just that TI calculators *accepted*
>expressions as they were written.

It's irrelvant how TI handled the calculator evaluated the
expressions. It's the UI which is under discussion, here, and Robert
(and many others, including myself), prefer the RPN UI.

>No mental gymnastics were required.

Are you implying the more "mental gymnastics" are required to use an
RPN calculator? Because that would be false.

>Furthermore, the often touted claim that HP calculators were much more
>economical with keystrokes was a myth which I disproved many a time.

"Much more economical" sounds to me like a straw-man argument. "At
least as, and often more, economical" is the truth, not a "myth", in
every case I've compared the two methods.

>In any case, whether or not RPN is better than algebraic is
>irrelevant. My contention is that a person should not have to adapt to
>technology, but that technology should adapt to him. For example, I
>should be able to pick up any unfamiliar calculator and key in "1+2=",
>not the counterintuitive "1 Enter 2 +".

A superior (or even only preferred) tool is quite often worth the
investment in how to use it. It's ludicrous to discount RPN
calculators because they may take a couple days getting used-to.

>The inner workings should be
>transparent to the user interface.

True, but many of us feel the RPN UI is vastly superior, especially
when used in conjunction with multi-line displays.