Re: Another question

[mto@xxxxxxxx (Michael O'Brien)]

> Another question about my impending equipment upgrade. I currently use
> XyWrite 4 /DOS almost as a shell; it's loaded all the time, and I shell
> to my dialer dozens of times a day (I'm a reporter...). With my 386SX,
> each shell to the dialer takes about 2.5 seconds. I'll be getting a 486
> with 8 megs memory. Would I gain much by multitasking--using Xy/dos in a
> dos window, running the dialer in another dos window?
>  Since I have no need for graphical features, would I do better using
> OS/2 or something archaic, like Desqview?
>   Or would I better using my current DOS setup, a very big
> cache and a RAM disk for swapping? My priorities are speed and
> stability; I don't care much for pretty icons.

You could also think of using a good task-switching program, which simply uses
extended memory. Back & Forth, Ver. 2.14 (available on Compuserve, Zenith
Software Forum) does very well and has good features for cut & paste, macros,
built-in dialer, etc. Switching is faster than above (less than a second on a
386-20 with 4 Megs).

Michael O'Brien
Lincoln, MA mto@xxxxxxxx