On DOS, Tech. Suport, & UltraVision {was: Re: Xywrite + Win-2000}

["J. R. Fox" jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

Thomas J Hawley wrote:

> I had a recent experience with IBM ThinkPad support which involved some bios
> issues on the parallel port. I was explaining to the rep how the port would
> lock up when printing from a DOS application, although Windows applications
> worked OK. We were not getting anywhere. It suddenly occurred to me that the
> rep had no idea what DOS was; he had grown up with Windows and never knew
> anything else. Explaining to him that IBM still sold DOS was like explaining
> that IBM still sold OS/2; the typical rep is just clueless about such things.

And both they and we will be much the worse for this. DOS is fundamental, and one
always needs fundamentals before moving on to more advanced topics. DOS worked
directly on / with the hardware, whereas Windows (all modern 32-bit OSes, to be fair
here), impose additional layers that keep you at some remove from the h/w. But
there are key troubleshooting things that can only be done from the "basement," and
not at all if you can't get there for direct access. There are a number of good
diagnostics and hard-drive utilities that can only do their job, or function
reliably, when booted into from DOS, or some compact runtime version of it that they
provide. The latest version of Partition Magic will let you manipulate partitions
directly from Windows, but I think that would be akin to taking a midnight stroll
through a minefield.

> We are indeed fortunate to have the collective support and experience of this
> List; without it, Xywrite could not endure.

Agreed. (Well, strictly speaking, the product itself no longer endures . . . just
the use of it by our remaining band of devotees. I like to think they number as
some high multiple of the membership of this list.)

While we're at it, I was always under the impression that UltraVision was just for
laptops. Is that incorrect ? Does it have any useful effect on TFT type displays ?

Jordan