Re: Xywrite antiques

[jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

Leslie Bialler wrote:

> If this law were in effect, free versions of Windows 3.1 could now be
> distributed (although why anyone would want one I cannot imagine).

You might be surprised at the residual value certain things may have to some
people. As partly touched upon in a recent post of mine, the real Win 3.1 in my
real DOS partition can be useful for debugging or overcoming certain s/w
compatibility issues in the Win-OS2 subsystem of my primary OS, OS/2 "Warp."
The real DOS boot option itself can be quite useful as a low-level environment
(right up close to the system h/w, sans the many restrictions and complex
overhead of today's OS leviathans) for troubleshooting system faults. There
have been various times when a Tech Support person has asked me "Can you get to
a real DOS prompt ?" (i.e., NOT a Dosbox emulator inside Win-whatever, or even
the much more compliant one within OS/2), in order to run a particular test, not
readily performable elsewhere. Most computer users today probably could not
answer 'Yes' to that question.

Jordan