X-within-URL: http://www.seattletimes.com/news/technology/html98/altpaul_080998.html
_________________________________________________________________
Copyright © 1998 The Seattle Times Company
Posted at 08:46 a.m. PDT; Sunday, August 9, 1998
[ Section ] User Friendly
Bereavement for DOS will leave ample time for wake
User Friendly (Send e-mail to: pa-new@xxxxxxxx)
Not long ago Microsoft announced that DOS is dead. With the
eventual merger of Windows 98 and Windows NT in a unified
32-bit system, all traces of 16-bit DOS will finally disappear
from the operating system.
The announcement reminded me of a memorable cover of InfoWorld,
a weekly trade publication, in 1984. On a black sepulchral
background, the cover contained only the words: "Is CP/M Dead?"
The computing world was quickly moving to the MS-DOS standard
popularized by IBM, Compaq and a host of "clone" computers.
There may be people out there still using CP/M computers such
as the Osborne I and Kaypro II. But not many. Eventually the
same will be true of DOS.
It will probably take longer for DOS to reach its final resting
place. A lot of businesses and offices have custom programs for
inventory, payroll, customer accounts and other applications
that still run on DOS. Because it is small in size, uses little
memory and runs fast, DOS also is used in some consumer
applications. DR-DOS, an MS-DOS competitor, is reportedly doing
a healthy business in embedded systems - devices containing
chips and some smarts, like a cable box or alarm system.
In the pantheon of software greats, some DOS applications will
live on forever. Lotus 1-2-3, WordStar, WordPerfect 4.2, dBASE
II, ProComm Plus. Tornado Notes, Sidekick, Norton Utilities and
Managing Your Money are some examples.
And the shareware standouts, including locally produced
PC-Write from Quicksoft and PC-File from Buttonware. When major
applications cost $400 or $500, shareware helped build
software's accessibility and popularity with try-before-you-buy
offerings.
I still use a couple of DOS programs. Nota Bene added a host of
document formatting and management features to XyWrite, an
early DOS word processor that was blazingly fast and used,
incredibly, just 200K or so of memory. You can open and flip
between nine text files with Nota Bene and, although you'd
never want to try to print out any of the files (in anything
but straight ASCII text), its speed puts any graphics word
processor to shame.
Then there's Lotus Magellan, long ago abandoned by the
spreadsheet trailblazer. Magellan is the best disk-management
and file-search utility I've ever found - fast, intuitive, easy
to learn and use. Some of its more convenient features, such as
the split-screen view showing the file name on the left and a
snapshot of the contents on the right, have found their way
into Microsoft's Internet Explorer 4.01 and Windows 98.
Without updating, however, Magellan lost its ability to display
many types of files. It cannot show html files, although it
does display the text of the file (along with html formatting
commands in text form). The same problem arises with e-mail.
Magellan's cousin on the Macintosh, On Location, suffers the
same disability. The software long ago was sold by its original
developer, On Technology. The last time I called with a
question, I was told the program was no longer being supported.
The same is true of WriteNow, a fast, easy-to-use word
processor for the Mac. It changed hands a couple of times, then
dropped off the face of the Earth.
All of this is simply a reminder of how dramatically the
technology landscape changes. Without constant updating, active
customer support and other sound business practices, software
suffers obsolescence and eventual abandonment.
It's amazing, in fact, that DOS has lasted this long. What
other software created nearly two decades ago has much consumer
or business use today? Had Microsoft not created a gradual
migration path from DOS to Windows (which originally was a DOS
application), DOS undoubtedly would have died a lot sooner.
User Friendly appears Sundays in the Personal Technology
section of The Seattle Times. Paul Andrews is a member of The
Times' staff. Send e-mail to: pand-new@xxxxxxxx
_________________________________________________________________