Re: My First Computer (was Computing Editorial)

["Ross Simpson" <yeah_whatever>]

"Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch" <bj_666@gmx.net> wrote in message...

> Yes, to be used by drivers residing in operating system space. Not to
> be used by user space programs directly. That's exaclty why Windows below
> NT, 2000 and XP are so damned unstable. Every app was allowed to mess
> directly with the hardware.

The first time I saw Windoze XP bootup it crashed straight away (probably
felt my presence was too close, seems to work for everyone else when I'm not
around)!

Those systems were never really designed for that kind of thing anyway. I
just felt if people use them in any of the 'nixs, that would be achievable.

It's simply not like DOS or CP/M-86 where you can use them all the time.
I've converted many DOS programs to CP/M-86 using Hardware interrupts & I
haven't sighted a single problem with them in terms of stableness. However
those kinds of OSes can easily run in Real-Mode which is very different from
the likes of Windoze.

> Because any decent OS doesn't let you access the hardware directly. This
> "wasting" of CPU horsepower makes computers running more stable and makes
> the programs more compatible with different hardware. If you think DirectX
> is too M$ + IBM clone specific then replace it with OpenGL or the already
> mentioned SDL.

Mate, if by any chance you decide to do some DOS or CP/M-86 programming one
day, you will see that accessing the hardware directly comes in very handy.

But for the commercial world who are perhaps caught up using their Windows &
Linux, perhaps Hardware Interrupts are not the thing (just stick to some
basic Delphi or something). I have used Delphi in the past & while I loved
using it for school projects as such in it's early stages, I've found Delphi
to be one of those to which is updated to include more stuff (it will always
be the case).

Doing stuff with Interrupts in a Real Mode OS has allowed me to write more
functions & procedures, without them I'd be writing the kinds of programs
which look & feel 20 years old.

Ross.